Striking a populist theme, Obama said he would not rest until every American got a “fair shot” in an economy not controlled by the rich, and with a negative advertising barrage sought to disqualify Romney as a potential president.
Romney sought to mine frustration with the slow pace of economic recovery and argued that the president was out of ideas and had no clue how to create jobs, with unemployment at 7.9 percent and millions out of work.
No president since World War II has been elected with the unemployment rate above 7.4 percent, and Obama is hoping to avoid the fate of a host of European leaders who paid for the economic crisis with their jobs.
It appears that the US economy, the top issue in voters’ minds, is neither so bad that Obama is inevitably doomed, nor so good that the president is safe, leading to a nervous night on Tuesday as results come in.
US elections are not directly decided by the popular vote, but require candidates to pile up a majority -270 – of 538 electoral votes from the 50 states and Washington, DC, calculated indirectly on the basis of population.
A candidate can therefore win the nationwide popular vote and still be deprived of the presidency by falling short in the Electoral College.
Obama seems to be clinging on to a last line of defence in the Midwestern states of Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa, which would, in conjunction with safe Democratic states, guarantee him re-election.
In poll averages calculated by the RealClearPolitics website, Obama led in Iowa (by 2.4 percent), Ohio (2.9 percent), Wisconsin (4.2 percent), Virginia (0.3 percent), New Hampshire (2.0 percent), and Colorado (1.5 percent).
Romney led by 1.5 percent in the biggest swing state, Florida, and in North Carolina, which Obama won by just three percent, or 14,000 votes, in 2008.
Voters will also weigh in on more than 170 state-wide ballots for everything from gay marriage to marijuana and abortion to electoral maps.
Florida will vote on banning funding for abortions or insurance covering the service, while Maine could legalize same-sex marriage. Three states – Oregon, Washington and Colorado – will vote on totally legalizing marijuana.
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