State by State, Battle for Presidency Goes to Voters

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VIRGINIA Cheers for a Mitt Romney visit on Monday in Fairfax.

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WISCONSIN A rally for President Obama on Monday in Madison.

For the third time in the last four presidential campaigns, the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees went into Election Day close in the national polls, with not one of the major opinion surveys giving President Obama or Mitt Romney a lead of statistical significance.

But presidential races are decided in the states, and the nation will get an answer to the opposing cases for victory that each candidate has made for so many months. It will finally know, as one of Mr. Obama’s top aides has put it, “which side is bluffing” and whether battleground-state polls, which have given Mr. Obama a slim but consistent edge where it matters most, accurately foretold the outcome. As the night unfolds, clues to the outcome will spill out well before the votes are counted.

If exit polling indicates that Mr. Romney is substantially exceeding the share of the white vote that went to Senator John McCain four years ago, that will be a sign that he is replicating the coalition that gave President George W. Bush a second term. If Mr. Obama can win Virginia, a battleground with an early poll-closing time, Mr. Romney’s options for getting an Electoral College majority will be substantially reduced. And in Ohio, the vote in Hamilton County, which Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush both won, could signal who takes the state.

On Monday, Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama went on traditional last-day blitzes across the most important swing states, overlapping in the place that is expected to have the lead role in Tuesday’s drama, Ohio.

For Mr. Obama, it was the last day of campaigning in a career that took him in a few short years from the Illinois State Senate to the United States Senate and, finally, the White House. For Mr. Romney, it was to be the end of his seven-year quest for the presidency. But late Monday, his aides announced that he would make one last pass at Pennsylvania and Ohio, with stops in Pittsburgh and Cleveland on Tuesday.

Some Republicans said they believed the final push was needed given that Mr. Romney was going into Election Day without any of the top competitive states definitively in his column. A senior party strategist lamented that for all the optimistic signs, there was a preponderance of evidence “cutting against us.”

Democrats will be on high alert on Tuesday for what they consider attempts to suppress the vote, while Republicans make a case that strict voter identification rules and counting procedures be followed to guarantee the integrity of the outcome. Batteries of lawyers are standing by for both sides in the swing states, especially Ohio, where the skirmishing was already under way.

The rise of early voting across the country meant that even before Election Day, more than 30 million Americans had cast their ballots. Those results will be reported Tuesday night, providing a new element for viewers at home: many states will report initial results that encompass far more votes than ever before.

Now, as the campaigns say, it is all about turnout. But beyond the cliché, the main question is not only how many but also who.

Mr. Romney’s campaign built its theory of winning around the idea that turnout for Mr. Obama will fall well below his 2008 tally. The Obama campaign did not entirely disagree, but believes it has rebuilt his coalition of women, Hispanics, blacks and young voters just enough to win.

Here is a guide to what to look for as the night progresses to know who is up, who is down and whether, should there be delayed counts, recounts and court challenges, Election Day becomes Election Week or — gasp! — Month. (All times below are Eastern.)

At 7 p.m., when the voting ends in Virginia, an early clue to whether the night will be a long one or a short one may emerge. Both sides pursued the state’s 13 electoral votes tenaciously, but they are more central to the strategy of Mr. Romney, who made two stops there on Monday. 

If Mr. Obama carries Virginia, the path to victory narrows considerably for Mr. Romney, who will have to all but run the table of the remaining contested states. A senior adviser to the Romney campaign said the state’s importance is greater than its electoral votes because the outcome there could set the tone for the rest of election night.

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VIRGINIA Audience members in Sterling showed their support for Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who joined Tim Kaine, the Democratic candidate for the Senate, in a rally on Monday.

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OHIO Romney posters lined the walls in the Republican State Headquarters in Columbus. Mitt Romney’s campaign announced that he would make one last stop in the state, in Cleveland, on Tuesday.

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Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

FLORIDA Mr. Romney greeted supporters in Sanford on Monday. He expects to win Florida, which has 29 electoral votes, making it the biggest prize on the battleground map.

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IOWA Ray Benter, an Obama volunteer, canvassed on Monday in Des Moines. For six days he has opened up his home for volunteers to use as a headquarters for the get-out-the-vote efforts.

At 7:30, the polls close in Ohio, where the 18 electoral votes are critical to both men. The county-by-county tallies will be carefully scrutinized when the returns start rolling in. But a word of warning: campaign officials do not expect an outcome for several hours — at the least. And if Mr. Obama appears to take a commanding lead right out of the gate, Republicans can take heart in the knowledge that the early vote — an expected Obama strength — is counted first, with the ballots from Election Day coming in later.

If Mr. Romney carries Ohio, viewers should settle in for a long night. A Romney victory there could signal that the vaunted ground organization of the Obama campaign is faltering and that his Midwestern firewall is cracking.

The television networks — and their high-tech maps  will spotlight the three C’s of Ohio: Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati. The president is looking for a strong performance in Cleveland, which Mr. Romney is visiting Tuesday in the hope of shaving down Democratic margins. And Republicans are looking for strength in Cincinnati and its surrounding area of Hamilton County; when Mr. Obama won the county in 2008, he was the first Democrat in a generation to do so.

But if Mr. Obama wins Ohio, history will be on his side (no Republican has won the White House without Ohio), as will the landscape of swing states. With Ohio in his column, he could lose Colorado, Virginia and Florida and still defeat Mr. Romney by 281 to 257 electoral votes.

At 8, the voting ends in Florida, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. If the television networks are not able to call Pennsylvania quickly, Democrats have reason to move to the edge of their seats. But with 29 electoral votes, Florida is the biggest prize on the battleground map. The Obama campaign is not counting on victory there, but Mr. Romney needs to win. Otherwise, his advisers in Boston believe that Mr. Obama will be re-elected.

But keep this in mind about Florida: the ballot in many counties is unusually long, running more than 10 pages in some areas of the state because of judicial elections and initiatives, which means voting could take longer. And long lines in Florida could mean a long night ahead for Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney.

At 9, the voting ends in Colorado and Wisconsin. The states together have 19 electoral votes — one more than Ohio — and some strategists believe that the states could be split by Mr. Romney (Colorado) and Mr. Obama (Wisconsin). But if both states fall in one campaign’s favor, that candidate is almost certainly heading to the White House.

At 10, the polls close in Iowa. Both campaigns carefully courted the state, with its six electoral votes. The president selected Iowa as the site of his final rally on Monday night, a decision that his advisers said was rooted more in the symbolism of the place, where his victory in the 2008 caucuses solidified his rise on the national stage.

The result will answer the question of whether the visit to Des Moines was a moment of nostalgia or a last minute scramble for support or both. more info

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Mitt Romney: My vision for America

(CNN) -- On June 2, 2011, I began my quest for the presidency on the farm of Doug and Stella Scamman in Stratham, New Hampshire. I said then that our country is a land of freedom and opportunity. I spoke of the hard work of the millions of Americans who built our remarkable experiment in self-government. They carved out of the wilderness a land of immense prosperity and unlimited potential. I said then that "I believe in America."

For more than a year now, I've carried that message across America. As we draw close to Election Day, it is a good moment to reflect on what it means to believe in America.

Mitt Romney

America is a place where freedom rings. It is a place where we can discuss our differences without fear of any consequence worse than criticism, where we can believe in whatever creed or religion we choose, where we can pursue our dreams no matter how small or grand. It is a place that not only cherishes freedom, but is willing to fight to defend it. These are the qualities that define us.

America is a land of opportunity. But lately, for too many Americans, opportunity has not exactly come knocking. We've been mired in an economic slowdown that has left millions of our fellow citizens unemployed. The consequences in dreams shattered, lives disrupted, plans deferred, and hopes dimmed can be found all around us.

It hasn't always been this way. It certainly doesn't have to be this way in the future. We're all in this together. And together we can emerge from these troubles.

President Obama's op-ed: My vision for America

Together with Paul Ryan, I've put forward an economic recovery plan consisting of five central elements that will in four years create 12 million jobs.

· We will produce more of the energy we need to heat our homes, fill our cars, and make our economy grow.  We will stop President Obama's war on coal, his disdain for oil, and his effort to crimp natural gas by federal regulation of the very technology that produces it. We will support nuclear and renewables, but phase out subsidies once an industry is on its feet. We will invest in energy science and research to make discoveries that can actually change our energy world. By 2020, we will achieve North American energy independence.

· We will retrain our work force for the jobs of tomorrow and ensure that every child receives a quality education no matter where they live, including especially our inner cities. Parents and students, not administrators and unions, need to have greater choice. Our current worker retraining system is a labyrinth of federal programs that sprawls across 47 programs and nine agencies. We will eliminate this redundancy and empower the 50 states and the private sector to develop effective programs of their own.

· We will make trade work for America.  We'll open more markets to American agriculture, products, and services. And we will finally hold accountable any nation that doesn't play by the rules.  I will stand up for the rights and interests of American workers and employers.

Your turn: What's your vision for America?

Obama, Romney break down the math

Should Obama have another term?

Obama, Romney square off on energy

Romney: I won't reduce taxes for wealthy

· We will restore fiscal sanity to Washington by bringing an end to the federal spending and borrowing binge that in just four years has added more debt held by the public than almost all previous administrations combined. We will put America on track to a balanced budget by eliminating unnecessary programs, by sending programs back to states where they can be managed with less abuse and less cost, and by shrinking the bureaucracy of Washington.

· Finally, we will champion small business, the great engine of job creation in our country, by reforming the tax code and updating and reshaping regulations that have suffocated economic growth.

Nothing is ever easy in Washington, but these goals are rooted in bipartisan agreement, and I will work with members of both parties to accomplish them.  As governor of a state that was overwhelmingly Democratic, I was always ready to reach across the aisle and I can proudly point to the results. I've learned that when we come together to solve problems in a practical spirit, we can accomplish miracles.

In this respect, I am offering a contrast to what we are seeing in Washington today. We've watched as one party has pushed through its agenda without compromising with the other party. We've watched gridlock and petty conflict dominate while the most important issues confronting the nation, like chronic high unemployment, go unaddressed. The bickering has to end. I will end it.  I will reach across the aisle to solve America's problems.

Our economic crisis not only threatens the well-being of our citizenry, it has larger consequences in other realms. The economic weakness of the past several years has, alarmingly, fostered weakness in our foreign policy posture. Runaway domestic spending has led the president to propose reducing defense spending by hundreds of billions, cuts that his own secretary of defense has said would "devastate" our national security.

The most important task for any president is set out in the preamble to our Constitution—providing for the common defense. As commander-in-chief, I will roll back the president's deep and arbitrary cuts to our military. Our soldiers should never lack the tools they need to complete their mission and come home safely. I have always believed that the first purpose of a strong military is to prevent war. And preventing war is a supreme national interest. I will ensure that our military is strong enough that no adversary dares to challenge us.

Let us remember our history. We have accomplished so much, both in the world and at home. We've defeated tyrannies. We've lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. We've transformed our own society into a more perfect union. We've created a land of freedom and prosperity. The problems we need to overcome now are not bigger than we are. We can defeat them.  I am offering real change and a real choice. 

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President Barack Obama: My vision for America

(CNN) -- For the past few days, all of us have been properly focused on one of the worst storms of our lifetimes. We mourn those who were lost. And we pledge to stand with those whose lives have been turned upside down for as long as it takes them to recover and rebuild.

Because when hardship hits, America is at its best. The petty differences that consume us in normal times quickly melt away. There are no Democrats or Republicans during a storm -- only fellow Americans. That's how we get through the most trying times: together.

President Barack Obama

Four years ago, we were mired in two wars and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Together, we've battled our way back. The war in Iraq is over, Osama bin Laden is dead, and our heroes are coming home. Our businesses have created nearly 5 and a half million new jobs in the last two and half years. Home values and 401(k)s are rising. We are less dependent on foreign oil than at any time in the last 20 years. And the American auto industry is back.

We're not there yet. But we've made real progress. And on Tuesday, America will get to choose between two fundamentally different visions of what makes America strong.

Mitt Romney's op-ed: My vision for America

I believe America's prosperity was built on the strength of our middle class. We don't succeed when a few at the top do well while everyone else struggles to get by -- we're better off when everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules.

When Bill Clinton was president, he believed that if America invested in the skills and ideas of its people, good jobs and businesses would follow. His economic plan asked the wealthiest Americans to pay a little more so we could reduce our deficit and still invest in job training and education, research and technology, better health care and a dignified retirement. And what happened? By the end of his second term, our economy created 23 million new jobs. Incomes rose. Poverty fell. Deficits became the biggest surplus in history.

The path Governor Romney offers is the one we tried for eight years after President Clinton left office -- a philosophy that says those at the very top get to play by a very different set of rules than everyone else. Bigger tax cuts for the wealthy that we can't afford. Encouraging companies to ship jobs and profits overseas. Fewer rules for big banks and insurance companies. They're the policies that caused this mess in the first place.

Your turn: What's your vision for America?

In the closing weeks of this campaign, Governor Romney has started calling himself an agent of change. And I'll give him one thing -- offering another $5 trillion tax cut weighted towards the wealthy, $2 trillion in defense spending our military didn't ask for, and more power for big banks and insurance companies is change, all right. But it's not the change we need.

We know what real change looks like. And we can't give up on it now.

Should Obama have another term?

Change is an America where people of every age have the skills and education that good jobs require. We took on banks that had been overcharging for student loans for decades, and made college more affordable for millions. Now we'll recruit 100,000 math and science teachers so that high-tech, high-wage jobs don't end up in China, and train 2 million workers at community colleges for the skills local businesses need right now.

Change is an America that's home to the next generation of manufacturing and innovation. I'm not the candidate who said we should "let Detroit go bankrupt," I'm the president who bet on American workers and American ingenuity. Now I want a tax code that stops rewarding companies that ship jobs overseas, and starts rewarding companies that create jobs here; one that stops subsidizing oil company profits, and keeps supporting clean energy jobs and technology that will cut our oil imports in half.

Change is an America that turns the page on a decade of war to do some nation-building here at home. So long as I'm commander-in-chief, we'll pursue our enemies with the strongest military in the world. But it's time to use the savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to pay down our debt and rebuild America -- our roads and bridges and schools.

Change is an America where we reduce our deficit by cutting spending where we can, and asking the wealthiest Americans to go back to the income tax rates they paid when Bill Clinton was president. I've worked with Republicans to cut a trillion dollars of spending, and I'll do more. I'll work with anyone of any party to move this country forward. But I won't agree to eliminate health insurance for millions of poor, elderly, or disabled on Medicaid, or turn Medicare into a voucher just to pay for another millionaire's tax cut.

The folks at the very top don't need another champion in Washington. The people who need a champion in Washington are the Americans whose letters I read at night; the men and women I meet on the trail every day. The cooks and cleaning staff working overtime at a Las Vegas hotel. The furniture worker retraining for a career in biotechnology at age 55. The teacher who's forced to spend less time with each student in her crowded classroom. Her kids, who dream of becoming something great. Every small business owner trying to expand and do right by his or her employees -- all of these Americans need a champion in Washington.

When these Americans do well, America does well. That's the change we need right now. It's time to finish what we've started -- to educate our kids, train our workers, create new jobs, new energy, and new opportunity -- to make sure that no matter who you are, where you come from, or how you started out, this is the country where you can make it if you try.

The America we believe in is within our reach. The future we hope for is within our sights. That's why I'm asking for your vote this Tuesday. more information

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