Four major US national polls show that the presidential race is a virtual tie.
The final CNN/ORC International survey has the race dead even, with 49 per cent backing President Obama and 49 per cent supporting Republican challenger Romney.
A new Politico/George Washington University Battleground tracking poll also shows the contest deadlocked at 48 per cent.
Two other surveys show Obama with a narrow 1-point edge: The final NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows Obama leading Romney, 48-47 per cent. The latest ABC News/Washington Post tracking poll has the president ahead, 49-48 per cent.
A fifth poll, from the Pew Research Centre, gives Obama a 3-point advantage, 50-47 per cent.
Another CNN Poll of Polls yesterday indicated that the race in Ohio–perhaps the most decisive battleground this presidential cycle–is locked in a statistical dead heat.
The poll shows President Barack Obama at 50% and Mitt Romney at 47% in Ohio, one day before the election. Those numbers are an average of three Ohio polls of likely voters conducted in the last week: Ohio Poll/University of Cincinnati (Oct. 31-Nov. 4); CNN/ORC International (Oct. 30-Nov. 1) and NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist (Oct. 31-Nov.1). The Poll of Polls does not have a sampling error.
Both campaigns have been barnstorming Ohio, which has 18 electoral votes, in recent days, as many political observers consider the state a must-win for an overall victory. Obama, Romney and Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, each appeared in the Buckeye State to make their pitch yesterday.
The latest Ohio survey, from the University of Cincinnati, has the closest margin of the three polls, with 50% of likely voters in the state supporting Obama, while 49% back Romney. The one-point margin falls well within the sampling error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points, leaving the two candidates statistically tied. The university interviewed 901 likely voters by telephone.
The 2012 U.S. election battle has been one of the most expensive, acrimonious and closely contested White House races in recent memory.
Obama spent the last day of the campaign addressing crowds in Aurora, Colo., Madison, Wis., Columbus, Oh., and Des Moines, Iowa.
Romney started the day in Sanford, Fla., before racing through the cities of Lynchburg, Richmond and Fairfax in Virginia to Columbus, Ohio.
If the U.S. vote were open to non-Americans, Obama would be the resounding winner. A 21-country survey done by GlobeScan/PIPA for the BBC World Service showed that given the choice between the president and Romney, most people would vote Obama.
France is the most fervently pro-Obama, with 72 per cent saying they want him to be re-elected, followed by Australia (67 per cent), Canada (66 per cent), Nigeria (66 per cent) and Britain (65 per cent). Of the nations polled, only Pakistan favoured Romney (14 per cent) over Obama (11 per cent), with the vast majority (75 per cent) expressing no opinion.
No Republican has ever won the presidency without first taking the swing state of Ohio. It’s no surprise then that Ohio’s 18 electoral college votes are highly prized, which is why Obama and Romney have visited the state more than 80 times combined during the 2012 campaign, and why both men are stopping in the capital, Columbus, on the final day before the vote.
According to the United States Elections Project at George Washington University, 29,915,972 Americans had voted early (as of Sunday) in 34 states and the District of Columbia.
Despite heated talk about foreign policy and women’s issues, the most pressing issue in this campaign is undoubtedly the economy.
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