WASHINGTON - WHITE House rivals Barack Obama and John McCain yesterday hurled themselves into a Herculean final 48 hours of campaigning before their date with destiny in the hard-fought presidential election.
The front-running Mr Obama, 47, set his sights on battleground Ohio to clinch the race tomorrow.
How Obama, McCain are faring in key states
WASHINGTON - TUESDAY'S US presidential election will be decided in about a dozen battleground states where most opinion polls show Democrat Barack Obama ahead of Republican rival John McCain.
Mr Obama, who leads in every national opinion poll, is ahead in all the states won by Democrat John Kerry in 2004 as well as in several states won by Republican President George W. Bush, recent polls show.
His 72-year-old rival charged through three states - Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and then Florida - where victory could yet tip the presidential contest in his favour.
With all the polls putting the Democratic candidate ahead, the McCain camp was hoping that a Fox News poll giving Mr Obama a narrow three-point lead was more accurate than a CBS News survey putting the gap at 13 points.
An average of polls compiled by Real Clear Politics shows Mr Obama has been leading by between five points and eight points since the start of last month, but he again warned his supporters against complacency.
Mr Obama's three-city swing of Ohio, a crucial state which decided the 2004 election in favour of President George W. Bush, included an appearance in Cleveland with singer Bruce 'The Boss' Springsteen.
Mr McCain would end his three-state campaign charge with a late-night rally in Florida, a key swing state viewed by many as a must-win for him.
Both candidates were backed by armies of supporters manning phone banks, handing out brochures and spinning journalists as the campaigns made their final push in a race that carried a price tag estimated at US$2 billion (S$2.96 billion).
Entering the electrifying campaign's final weekend, Mr Obama had promised a day earlier a 'new politics for a new time' and said he had a 'righteous wind' at his back as he pursues his quest to become the first black US president.
The 47-year-old Illinois senator is continuing to hammer his rival over the US economic crisis, and seeking to portray him as a faithful sidekick of the deeply unpopular Mr Bush.
Mr Obama derided Mr McCain after Vice-President Dick Cheney on Saturday hailed the Arizona senator as the right man to lead the country because he 'understands the danger facing America'.
And he claimed that Mr Cheney 'knows that with John McCain you get a twofer: George Bush's economic policies and Dick Cheney's foreign policies'.
'Bush and Cheney have dug a deep hole. Now they're trying to hand the shovel to McCain,' he said.
On his part, Mr McCain attacked his rival's patriotism as he vied to make the election a referendum on Mr Obama's readiness to be commander-in-chief as the United States wages wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He said that Mr Obama was the wrong choice for a dangerous world where 'millions of lives' were at stake, in a bid to sow enough doubt to make voters overlook their stated preference for Mr Obama on the economy.
The Arizona senator also seized on a recent remark by Mr Obama that his primary victory had vindicated his faith in the US, saying: 'My country has never had to prove anything to me, my friends. I've always had faith in it and I've been humbled and honoured to serve it.'
Meanwhile, the presidential campaign has narrowed down to states that have been reliably Republican in recent elections, or in the case of Virginia, Indiana and North Carolina, that have not voted for a Democratic hopeful in decades.
Flush with a record-breaking fund-raising operation, Mr Obama is on the offensive all across the map.
He campaigned on Saturday in Nevada, Colorado and Missouri as he bid to lock down Republican states in the West and Mid-west.
Mr McCain hit the trail in Virginia and Pennsylvania - probably his only hope of prising a Democratic state away from Mr Obama - before travelling to New York for a cameo on the iconic TV comedy show Saturday Night Live.
The Republican was set to wrap up his campaign with a multi-state, whistlestop tour today.
Mr Obama is due to head on a battleground blitz of Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.
He is then expected to return to Chicago to wait and see if his amazing journey from rank outsider to favourite actually takes him all the way to the White House, or whether Mr McCain's promise of a shock victory becomes reality.
