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Raymond Souza carries away a ladder after boarding up a gift shop on the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware/AFP

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White House race beckons after calm of storm

Raymond Souza carries away a ladder after boarding up a gift shop on the boardwalk in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware/AFP

“We love our fellow Americans – wish them well,” he said, and appealed for supporters to make donations to the Red Cross.

Romney must balance a desire to use the precious last days of the campaign to maintain momentum without appearing oblivious to suffering Americans.

He has already been accused of muscling in on tragedy for political gain – over the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi last month – and so can ill afford any missteps seen as motivated by hope of an electoral dividend.

Equally, any errors by Obama in the wake of the storm could help Romney build his case that Benghazi was a symptom of a wider malaise and unravelling of leadership in the White House.

Top US office holders have been acutely aware of the potential of disasters to wreak a political price ever since president George W. Bush’s bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina seven years ago.

High-level campaign operatives deplore events they cannot control, hence the fabled history of the “October Surprise” – the sudden happening, at home or abroad, with the potential to reshape the late stages of an election.

For Romney, there is political danger in being seen as an afterthought as Obama shapes the narrative of the post-storm response, possibly squelching a head of steam the Republican has built up in recent weeks.

The hurricane and likely widespread power cuts in swing states like Virginia will also disarm plans by both campaigns to deluge voters with non-stop television advertising in the final days.

“We are winning this race,” insisted Obama’s senior aide David Axelrod. “We base it on cold, hard data based on who has voted so far and on state-by-state polling.”

In a memo however, Romney’s Ohio state director Scott Jennings said the president was facing a “nightmare” scenario in the key state.

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Romney leads by a few points in some national polls of the popular vote, but Obama is clinging to a slim advantage in the state-by-state race to 270 electoral votes needed to secure the White House.

But Obama was up one point, a swing back to the president of three points from last week, in the latest GWU/Politico/Battleground poll Monday.

A CNN/ORC poll in Florida, the biggest swing state, meanwhile suggested the race there has tightened, with Romney leading by only a single point.

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