COLUMBUS – Both President Obama and Mitt Romney were heading to Ohio yet again on the eve of the election, with final polls showing the Democratic incumbent just a sliver ahead of his Republican rival in the most fiercely contested of the battleground states.

Both were bringing big-name entertainers as warm-up acts to maximize crowd size at their closing events in Columbus – Bruce Springsteen for the president and, just a couple of hours later, the Marshall Tucker Band for Romney.

At the same time, volunteers on both sides were fanning out to thousands of homes, from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, trying to spur higher turnout of supporters in a race so agonizingly close that legal teams were already bracing for a protracted battle over ballot-counting.

INTERACTIVE: Battleground states map

The University of Cincinnati’s Ohio Poll, released Monday, found 50% of likely voters in the state favoring Obama and 48.5% backing Romney. A Columbus Dispatch poll, released Sunday, was...

LYNCHBURG, Va. — Campaigning in this hotly contested battleground state for the third time in five days, Mitt Romney urged his supporters on Monday to keep pushing until Election Day.

“I also want to thank many of you in this crowd that have been out there working on the campaign. Making calls from the victory centers, and by putting up a yard sign, in your neighbor’s yard,” he said, then chuckled. “And maybe  convincing a coworker to vote for Paul Ryan and me. And now, let’s make sure that we get everyone we know out to vote on Tuesday.  Every single voter--get ‘em out!”

Virginia is tightly split between Romney and President Obama, as shown by how much time both men and their surrogates are spending there. On the final day of the campaign, Romney is making two stops in the commonwealth out of five total. At the first, in Lynchburg, Romney’s sleek white campaign plane with “Believe in America” rolled up to a crowd of...

SANFORD, Fla. — Mitt Romney’s sprint through five rallies in four states began on a misty morning here along the vaunted I-4 corridor, a fitting start since the race could come down to the voters here in the heavily populated stretch from Tampa to Orlando.

For the former Massachusetts Governor it has been what he refers to, almost affectionately, as “long days and short nights” on Sunday. He arrived in Florida around 1am, six hours before the doors were set to open at the airplane hangar here, and had his usual pre-dawn wakeup call. But he walked briskly up on to the stage, slapping high-fives along the way.

"This is quite a gathering today. This is quite a welcome that you've provided me. Your voices are not just heard in this hangar, they're being heard all over the nation. And even though Ann is in a different city this morning, they are being felt— your voices—in both of our hearts," he said.

PHOTOS: Mitt Romney’s past

Over the past few days,...

After a year and a half of debating and speculating and declaring about what might be, there’s something reassuring about the movement of battalions of Americans into the voting booths. A thousand pre-election surveys can soon be put, finally, to bed. Something much more consequential has begun to unfold.

No wonder even the stoic Mitt Romney and the professorial President Obama have betrayed signs of the strain and real emotion in recent days. Romney teared up when a large crowd chanted his name. Obama couldn't stop telling aides this would be his "final" time completing this or that ritual of the trail. His final rally of his final campaign will be Monday in...

WASHINGTON – House Speaker John A. Boehner predicted that not only would his party retain control of the House, but suggested it might even gain seats at Democrats’ expense.

“I’ve never been into this idea that we had to lose seats,” Boehner said Monday on “America’s Newsroom” on Fox News. “I’m doing everything I can to make sure we lose none.”

Boehner has become more bullish over Tuesday’s outcome as Democratic hopes for a takeover of the House have all but faded with tightened races.

The speaker embarked on a bus tour across his battleground home state over the weekend in a final push for the Republican ticket. Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, the minority leader, has been in a similar sprint in the last days of the election. Democrats countered Monday that their fundraising and ground game is superior to Republicans, and will turn out votes.

INTERACTIVE: Outside spending in congressional races

Analysts...

PITTSBURGH – Stumping in a state considered safe for the Democrats until recently, Bill Clinton rallied a midday crowd in western Pennsylvania for Barack Obama, calling the president a unifier who will continue an economic recovery across the country.

“Who’s more likely to restore the middle class?” he asked the crowd in Pittsburgh’s Market Square. “I think it’s the candidate that got off the campaign trail and went to work on Hurricane Sandy with Republicans and Democrats.” 

“If you saw President Obama working with Democratic governors of New York and Connecticut, the Republican governor of New Jersey, the independent mayor of New York City – who just endorsed him by the way – you saw the guy who left the door open for the Republicans for four years, and they wouldn’t walk through,” he said. “But when you reelect the president tomorrow, they will walk through that door.”

INTERACTIVE: Battleground...

STERLING, Va. – Mitt Romney is the candidate of change? That’s malarkey to Joe Biden, who argued Monday that the only change from the Republican nominee is a recent shifting of his positions.

With Romney, Biden said, everything now “depends.”

“It depends on the weather. It depends on the polls. It depends on how they feel. … The only thing you can be sure of is it will change!” he said.

Romney and Rep. Paul Ryan, the vice presidential nominee, are like kids “trying to outrun their shadow.”

“But they don't know, the only time their shadow catches up with them, when the sun goes down. It's going down tomorrow night for them,” he said.

INTERACTIVE: Battleground states map

The vice president started the final day of the campaign in a key swing area of Northern Virginia, speaking to an estimated crowd of 800 at an outdoor park along with Virginia’s two sitting senators, Mark Warner and Jim Webb, as well as Tim Kaine, who is...

MADISON, Wis. – Bruce Springsteen was rhyming “Obama” with “pajama” and “Osama.” Presidential advisor and guru David Axelrod was waxing nostalgic about the Iowa caucuses of four years ago. And the president was pleading for votes: “We have come too far to turn back now.”

With a bit of the odd ball, the emotional and the rote, President Obama kicked off the final day his final campaign. Obama started with a rally in Wisconsin, heading next to Ohio and Iowa – a trio of swing states that could ensure a victory. The last rallies will be combined with a blitz of radio and television interviews, each representing a last chance to reach a voter, light a spark, keep the White House.

Obama was not taking on that task alone. He enlisted Springsteen, at this point the Democrats’ go-to guy for a get-out-the-vote soundtrack, to help draw crowds throughout the day.

PHOTOS: President Obama’s past

In the cold Wisconsin morning, even...

President Obama remains on track to receive over 70% of Latino votes, and perhaps win a record-high share, according to the final weekly tracking poll by the Latino Decisions polling firm.

The survey conducted for impreMedia, the publisher of La Opinion and other Spanish-language newspapers, shows Obama winning 72% of Latino voters compared with 23% for Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Among the voters most likely to turn out, Obama’s lead was a point higher, 73%-24%.

The record high for a Democratic presidential candidate is the 73% of Latino votes captured by Bill Clinton in his 1996 reelection, at a point when the Latino electorate was considerably smaller. By contrast, according to Latino Decisions’ statistics, Democratic Sen. John Kerry took only 60% of Latino votes in 2004 in his campaign against President George W. Bush, who made reaching out to Latinos an important element of his campaign.

INTERACTIVE: Battleground states map

The chief remaining question is how big the...

CLEVELAND -- The neighborhood doesn’t look promising for scaring up votes: One house is charred and barely standing, a victim of arson; others have boards over their windows and orange Xs spray-painted on their doors. But the men, mostly African American, many from a shelter down the road, pass dutifully down the street, leaving fliers that encourage people to vote early and include a phone number to call for a ride to the polls.

 “We’re targeting lower voter turnout areas,” explained Deltrim Kimbro, 43, an ex-convict who is leading one of the canvassing groups in the closing days of the campaign. “This election is going to be close, and a couple of votes in each precinct matter.”

 This is an effort organized by Community of Faith Church, in which groups go out to different areas of town and remind people to vote, offering a ride if they need one. Since Thursday, they’ve visited downtown Cleveland, area malls and neighborhoods like this one,...

CINCINNATI  -- You wouldn’t think a guy like Jack Nicklaus, arguably the most successful professional golfer of all time, would have many regrets in life.

But it was regret that drove Nicklaus to take a stand in the 2012 presidential election.

On Sunday, Nicklaus stood in a parking lot at Paul Brown Stadium, home of the Cincinnati Bengals, and asked Ohioans to vote for Mitt Romney.

As Bengals fans grilled hot dogs and sipped beer before the game against the Denver Broncos— yes, a swing-state face-off — Nicklaus stepped off a Romney bus parked next to a gravel works in the corner of Parking Lot E. It’s hard to describe the effect his presence had on some of the football fans, who at first were stunned to see who was standing in their midst.

“I never in a million years thought I’d be standing next to a Romney bus with Jack Nicklaus inside,” said Ryan Sullivan,  29, an Ohio Department of Transportation worker. “He’s the Golden Bear! He&...