Obama and McCain Focus Campaign Finale on Key Battleground States

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is campaigning in Nevada, Colorado, and Missouri on Saturday, three Republican states where he aims to secure victory, while John McCain is in Virginia and Pennsylvania, where he trails in the polls but hopes for a turnaround on Election Day, Tuesday, November 4.

Their vice presidential partners have a separate schedule of campaign events, with Democrat Joe Biden in Indiana and Ohio today, and Republican Sarah Palin in Florida and Virginia. In the final weekend of the campaign, the candidates plan to visit almost exclusively those states where President George W. Bush won in 2004.

The highest national viewership on Saturday was secured by Senator McCain, who will guest on the iconic comedy show on NBC, ‘Saturday Night Live’, whose parody of this year’s presidential campaign is breaking all viewership records.

"Four days separate us from change in the United States", Obama said Friday night at a rally in Indiana, one of the six Republican states where he is the polling favorite to win. McCain’s campaign claims that the Arizona senator has been narrowing the gap in recent days, and that it is smaller than what public opinion polls indicate. McCain’s aides state that according to internal research, he is trailing Obama by four percentage points nationally.

"We are closing the gap, my friends. We will win in Ohio. We are trailing by a few percentage points, but we are coming back strong", McCain said Friday at rallies in that state.

An Associated Press-Yahoo News poll from Saturday shows that 51 percent of likely voters support Obama and 43 percent support McCain, with a high 14 percent saying they are undecided or could still change their minds before the election. Both campaigns are focused on winning over undecided voters and mobilizing their supporters to turn out in large numbers on Election Day. Experts and political analysts from American TV networks express surprise at the relatively high percentage of undecided voters, despite nearly two years of campaigning. On the other hand, McCain’s advisors hope that a larger portion of undecided voters will lean towards their side and bring about a turnaround on November 4.

The average of 11 leading national polls on Saturday shows Obama with a 6.4 percentage point lead, at 50.2 to 43.8 percent, according to the electoral portal ‘Real Clear Politics’ (RCP). According to the latest polls from the Rasmussen Institute and Zogby/C-SPAN, that lead has been reduced to five percentage points.

On Saturday, Obama is holding rallies in Nevada, Colorado, and Missouri. He has dedicated the entire Sunday to Ohio, one of the key so-called swing states where he leads by 5.8 percentage points, according to the average of nine leading polls reported by RCP. On Sunday in Cleveland, Bruce Springsteen will perform alongside Obama, and on Monday he will continue campaigning in Virginia and Florida.

In the last three days of the campaign, McCain plans to visit eight states, with a final rally on Monday night in his home state of Arizona, where Obama’s campaign began airing TV ads on Friday, as polls show McCain leading by only four percentage points. In tonight’s appearance by Senator McCain on ‘Saturday Night Live’, actor Ben Affleck, a strong supporter of Barack Obama, will host. When McCain’s vice presidential partner Sarah Palin appeared on October 18, that late-night show experienced its highest viewership in 14 years. McCain, a 72-year-old veteran of American politics known for his sense of humor, last appeared on SNL in May of this year, after securing the Republican nomination. He was the host of the show in 2002. (Hina)