President Barack Obama and Republican foe Mitt Romney Saturday power into a final weekend of campaigning before handing their fates to voters after a bitter, grueling White House race.
President Barack Obama and Republican foe Mitt Romney Saturday power into a final weekend of campaigning before handing their fates to voters after a bitter, grueling White House race.
The rivals will chase one another through the battleground states that will decide Tuesday's election.
Obama will campaign in Ohio before heading to Wisconsin and Iowa ahead of a late night rally in Virginia, where he still hopes for an insurance win.
Romney, fresh from the biggest rally of his campaign, which drew around 18,000 people on a cold night in West Chester, Ohio, Friday will travel to New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado.
In a show of close combat on the last weekend of the campaign, both candidates will be in the eastern Iowa town of Dubuque, within hours of one another.
"We're almost home. One final push will get us there," Romney said before a crowd police estimated to be at least 18,000 strong. "We are so very, very close. The door to a brighter future is there, it's open, it's waiting for us."
Obama had earlier evaded a last-minute time bomb as the economy pumped out more jobs than expected in October, delivering a boost to his re-election hopes as the final weekend of campaigning begins.
Obama, campaigning in Ohio Friday repudiated Romney's claim to being an agent of change, accusing him instead of trying to "massage the facts," highlighting a Romney ad that claims that Chrysler plans to outsource jobs to China to produce its Jeep vehicles.
National polls of the popular vote now mostly show a tied race or with either man up one point -- but with time running out Obama's position in key battleground states seems to be holding.
A CNN/Opinion Research poll showed Obama up three points in Ohio, raising his average in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of opinion surveys in the state to 2.4 points.
The president also leads Romney in enough of the eight or so swing states to assure himself of the 270 electoral votes needed for re-election, if polling data is confirmed by voting.
