Americans vote after long and bitter campaign for White House

1 of 30. People line up to vote in the U.S. presidential election at a polling station set up for those affected by Hurricane Sandy in an art gallery at John Jay College in New York November 6, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Chip East

By Matt Spetalnick and John Whitesides

WASHINGTON | Tue Nov 6, 2012 12:31pm EST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney battled down to the wire on Tuesday, mounting a last-minute Election Day drive to get their supporters to the polls in a handful of states that will decide the winner in a neck-and-neck race for the White House.

Capping a long and bitter campaign, Americans began casting their votes at polling stations across the country. At least 120 million people were expected to render judgment on whether to give Obama a second term or replace him with Romney.

Their decision will set the country's course for the next four years on spending, taxes, healthcare and foreign policy challenges like the rise of China and Iran's nuclear ambitions.

National opinion polls show Obama and Romney in a virtual dead heat, although the Democratic incumbent has a slight advantage in several vital swing states - most notably Ohio - that could give him the 270 electoral votes needed to win the state-by-state contest.

Romney, the multimillionaire former head of a private equity firm, would be the first Mormon president and one of the wealthiest Americans to occupy the White House. Obama, the first black president, is vying to be the first Democrat to win a second term since Bill Clinton in 1996.

Whichever candidate wins, a razor-thin margin would not bode well for the clear mandate needed to break the partisan gridlock in Washington.

Romney voted at a community center near his home in a Boston suburb, before dashing off for a pair of last-minute stops, including in Ohio. "I feel great about Ohio," he said when asked about a state that is considered a must-win for him.

Obama, settling into his hometown of Chicago, made a final pitch to morning commuters in battleground states that have been an almost obsessive focus of both campaigns seeking to map out their paths to victory. He also made a surprise visit to a Chicago campaign office.

"Four years ago, we had incredible turnout," Obama told a Miami radio station in a pre-recorded interview. "I know people were excited and energized about the prospect of making history, but we have to preserve the gains we've made and keep moving forward."

He called into a hip-hop music station in Tampa, Florida, in a final outreach to African-American supporters, saying that voting was "central to moving our community forward."

Fueled by record spending on negative ads, the battle between the two men was focused primarily on the lagging economic recovery and persistently high unemployment, but at times it also turned personal.

BOOSTING TURNOUT

As Americans headed to voting booths, campaign teams for both candidates worked the phones feverishly to mobilize supporters to cast their ballots.

Polls will begin to close in Indiana and Kentucky at 6 p.m. EST (1900 p.m EDT) on Tuesday, with voting ending across the country over the next six hours.

The first results, by tradition, were tallied in Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, both in New Hampshire, shortly after midnight (0100 a.m EDT). Obama and Romney each received five votes in Dixville Notch. In Hart's Location, Obama had 23 votes to nine for Romney and two for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson.

The close presidential race raises the prospect of a disputed outcome similar to the 2000 election, which ended with a U.S. Supreme Court decision favoring George W. Bush over Al Gore after legal challenges to the close vote in Florida. Both the Romney and Obama campaigns have assembled legal teams to deal with possible voting problems, challenges or recounts.

The balance of power in the U.S. Congress also will be at stake in Senate and House of Representatives races that could impact the outcome of "fiscal cliff" negotiations on spending cuts and tax increases, which kick in at the end of the year unless a deal is reached.

Obama's Democrats are now expected to narrowly hold their Senate majority, while Romney's Republicans are favored to retain House control.

Amid uncertainty over the U.S. election outcome, no major moves were expected in global financial markets while investors waited for the result. World stock markets edged slightly higher, and U.S. exchanges opened up modestly.

Despite the weak economy, Obama appeared in September to be cruising to a relatively easy win after a strong party convention and a series of stumbles by Romney, including a secretly recorded video showing the Republican writing off 47 percent of the electorate as government-dependent victims.

But Romney rebounded in the first debate on October 3 in Denver, where his sure-footed criticism of the president and Obama's listless response started a slow rise for Romney in polls. Obama seemed to regain his footing in recent days at the head of federal relief efforts for victims of superstorm Sandy in the New York-New Jersey area.

The presidential contest is now likely to be determined by voter turnout - specifically, what combination of Republicans, Democrats and independent voters shows up at polling stations.

Weather could be a factor. Much of the nation was dry and mild, though rain was forecast later on Tuesday in the Southeast, including Florida, an important swing state.

Obama and Romney raced through seven battleground states on Monday to hammer home their final themes, urge supporters to get to the polls and woo the last remaining undecided voters.

'WE KNOW WHAT CHANGE LOOKS LIKE'

Obama focused on Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa, the three Midwestern swing states that, barring surprises elsewhere, would ensure that he reaches the 270 electoral votes needed to win. Romney visited the must-win states of Florida, Virginia and Ohio before finishing in New Hampshire.

After two days of nearly around-the-clock travel, Obama wrapped up his final campaign tour in Des Moines, Iowa, on Monday with a speech that hearkened back to his 2008 campaign.

"I came back to ask you to help us finish what we've started because this is where our movement for change began," he told a crowd of some 20,000 people. Obama wiped away tears as he reflected on those who had helped his campaign.

Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts, ended Monday in Manchester, New Hampshire, the city where he started his campaign last year. "We're one day away from a fresh start," the hoarse-sounding candidate told a crowd of 12,000.

Obama ridiculed Romney's claims to be the candidate of change and said the challenger would be a rubber stamp for a conservative Tea Party agenda. "We know what change looks like, and what he's selling ain't it," he said in Columbus, Ohio.

Romney argued he was the candidate who could break the partisan gridlock in Washington and said four more years of Obama could mean another economic recession.

The common denominator for both candidates was Ohio. Without the state's 18 electoral votes, the path to victory becomes very narrow for Romney.

Polls have shown Obama with a small but steady lead in the state for months, sparked in part by his support for a federal bailout of the auto industry, which accounts for one of every eight jobs in Ohio, and by a strong state economy with an unemployment rate lower than the 7.9 percent national rate.

That undercut the central argument of Romney's campaign - that his business experience made him uniquely qualified to create jobs and lead an economic recovery.

Romney's aides hoped an 11th-hour visit on Tuesday could also boost his cause in Pennsylvania, a Democratic-leaning state that he has tried to put in play in recent weeks.

Obama fought back through the summer with ads criticizing Romney's experience at the private equity firm Bain Capital and portraying him as out of touch with ordinary Americans.

That was part of a barrage of advertising in the most heavily contested battleground states from both candidates and their party allies, who raised a combined $2 billion.

The rise of "Super PACs," unaffiliated outside groups that can spend unlimited sums on behalf of candidates, also helped fuel the record spending on political ads.

Obama voted in October by taking advantage of early voting procedures. Vice President Joe Biden stood patiently in a long line Tuesday to cast his ballot in his home state of Delaware.

"Oh, I'm feeling pretty good," Biden said when asked if he had any prediction, according to a pool report.

Asked whether this would be the last time he would vote for himself, he said with a grin: "No, I don't think so." The 69-year-old former U.S. senator, who twice ran unsuccessfully for the White House before becoming Obama's running mate, has not ruled out another run in 2016.

(Additional reporting by Jeff Mason in Chicago, Patricia Zengerle in Boston, Matt Spetalnick, Lisa Lambert and Susan Heavey in Washington; Writing by John Whitesides and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Alistair Bell and Eric Beech)

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Obama congratulates Romney on "spirited campaign"

1 of 2. First lady Michelle Obama hugs U.S. President Barack Obama on last night of campaigning while in Des Moines, Iowa, November 5, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

By Jeff Mason

CHICAGO | Tue Nov 6, 2012 12:24pm EST

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama congratulated Republican rival Mitt Romney on Tuesday for running a hard-fought race for the White House and expressed confidence he would win re-election during a stop at a local campaign office to thank volunteers.

"I ... want to say to Governor Romney congratulations on a spirited campaign. I know that his supporters are just as engaged and just as enthusiastic and working just as hard today," Obama said as volunteers made phone calls encouraging supporters to get to the polls.

"We feel confident we've got the votes to win, but it's going to depend ultimately on whether those votes turn out. And so I would encourage everybody on all sides just to make sure that you exercise this precious right that we have that people fought so hard for us to have."

Obama made calls to volunteers from the campaign office to thank them for working for his re-election.

"I expect that we'll have a good night, but no matter what happens, I just want to say how much I appreciate everybody who supported me, everybody who's worked so hard on my behalf," he said.

Opinion polls show Obama and Romney in a virtual dead heat, although the Democratic incumbent has a slight advantage in several vital swing states that could give him the 270 electoral votes needed to win the state-by-state contest.

Traditionally presidential candidates get media attention on Election Day by going to vote. But Obama cast his ballot in Chicago last month - part of his campaign's push to get its supporters to vote early.

So the president's visit to the office gave him a chance to get in front of the cameras, generate news coverage and encourage turnout.

Obama and Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and private equity executive, have fought a largely negative campaign. Obama's team attacked Romney for his business record, and Romney's team criticized the president for presiding over high unemployment and a slow economic recovery.

Obama's conciliatory comments represent the close of the bitter campaign and could appeal to last-minute undecided voters, who are turned off by the lack of bipartisanship in Washington.

In addition to his campaign office stop, Obama is doing a round of interviews and is expected to play basketball with friends, a tradition for the sports-loving president on Election Day.

(Editing by Xavier Briand)

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Ryan ends campaign with a blessing and visit home

1 of 5. Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan attends a campaign event in Reno, Nevada November 5, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Eric Thayer

By Samuel P. Jacobs

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin | Tue Nov 6, 2012 1:32am EST

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin (Reuters) - Eighty-six days after Paul Ryan was introduced as Mitt Romney's running mate aboard the U.S.S. Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia, the Republican vice presidential candidate returned to his home state of Wisconsin late Monday night, putting an end to a marathon stretch of campaigning with one final rally.

"We were in Nevada. We were in Iowa. We were in Ohio. We were in Colorado," the Wisconsin congressman said, checking off the day's stops before his arrival in the state, "but it is really great to be back here in Packer land, God's country, back here in Wisconsin," Ryan said.

Ryan was introduced by Governor Scott Walker as "our fellow cheesehead," a nickname for state residents proud of their dairy farms and professional football team, the Green Bay Packers.

Starting Monday morning in Reno, Nevada, Ryan hop-scotched through five states, four time zones, and more than 2,800 miles in a last sprint before the polls open across the nation on Tuesday.

Ryan's home state is one of a handful of states whose victor is likely to determine the winner of the presidential campaign.

"They have always taken us for granted, Wisconsin," Ryan told 2,500 people gathered in a Milwaukee, Wisconsin airplane hangar. "They thought it was easy. We haven't gone Republican since 1984," Ryan said, noting the last time the state voted for a Republican presidential candidate.

"Let's prove them wrong," he said.

Earlier on Monday, in Johnston, Colorado, Ryan entered a truck stop in search of a photo opportunity and cinnamon roll and received a blessing from a Roman Catholic priest instead.

Ryan, who is Catholic, introduced himself to a patron and began talking to Father Greg Ames of Northglenn, Colorado.

Ryan removed a black string of rosary beads from his jacket pocket and asked for Ames's blessing.

On Tuesday morning, Ryan will vote in his hometown of Janesville, Wisconsin. While there, he'll have the rare distinction of voting for himself twice. Ryan also is on the ballot for reelection to Congress as well.

(Reporting By Samuel P. Jacobs; Editing by Paul Simao)

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Emotional Obama ends campaign in Iowa with call for change

1 of 2. U.S. President Barack Obama appears with tears on his cheek during remarks at his final presidential campaign rally in Des Moines, Iowa, November 5, 2012, on the eve of the U.S. presidential elections.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed

By Jeff Mason

DES MOINES, Iowa | Tue Nov 6, 2012 12:36am EST

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - An emotional President Barack Obama ended his final campaign on Monday in Iowa, the place that launched his first White House bid and that could hold the key to his political future.

After two days of nearly round-the-clock travel to the battleground states of Ohio, Florida, Colorado, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, Obama ended his tour in Des Moines with a speech that harkened back to his 2008 campaign.

"I've come back to Iowa one more time to ask for your vote. I came back to ask you to help us finish what we've started, because this is where our movement for change began," he told a crowd of some 20,000 people.

Obama's voice broke and he wiped away tears from his eyes as he reflected on those who had helped his campaign.

The night rally was the last one of Obama's 2012 re-election effort. Unlike Republican rival Mitt Romney, who has stops planned in Pennsylvania and Ohio on Election Day, Obama is scheduled to spend all of Tuesday in his hometown of Chicago.

In 2008 Iowa propelled Obama to the Democratic presidential nomination when it backed him during its caucuses, the country's first presidential nominating contest. Obama beat then rival Hillary Clinton for their party's nomination and went on to best Republican Senator John McCain for the White House.

This year Iowa is another swing state with six electoral votes that could give him the edge in the race against Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.

Obama has talked wistfully about this being his final campaign in recent months, but his show of emotion was rare. Obama grew teary at the end of his 2008 campaign as well when his grandmother died shortly before Election Day.

Obama reminisced about that campaign and repeated a promise that he has not dwelled on this year: the inspirational pledge to change the world.

Obama told the story of the woman who coined the chant "Fired up, ready to go," a phrase that came to symbolize his 2008 campaign.

"That shows you what one voice can do. One voice can change a room. And if it can change a room, it can change a city. And if it can change a city, it can change a state. And if it can change a state, it can change a nation. And if it can change a nation, it can change the world," he said.

"Iowa, in 2008 your voice changed the world."

First lady Michelle Obama, who has crisscrossed the United States headlining political events for her husband, joined the president for the rally.

"Truly, this is where it all began -- right here," she said to cheers from the crowd.

Obama has traveled to Iowa 12 times this year, according to his campaign.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

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Insight: For most voters, presidential campaign is distant

1 of 5. U.S. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney (L) and U.S. President Barack Obama answer a question at the same time during the second U.S. presidential campaign debate in Hempstead, New York, October 16, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Jim Young

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON | Sun Nov 4, 2012 1:23am EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - This year's presidential election could be among the closest in U.S. history, as President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney are locked in a virtual dead heat. For a growing number of voters, however, it will not be much of a contest at all.

Roughly 22 percent of the U.S. population lives in the nine politically divided states that are likely to determine the outcome of Tuesday's election - and that have been the focus of the candidates' campaign stops and advertising.

That has left four-fifths of Americans effectively on the sidelines, the highest proportion in more than century.

It's a reflection of how Americans elect their president not by popular vote, but through a state-by-state process known as the Electoral College. The winner of each state typically is awarded that state's electoral votes, with 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the White House.

Over the past four decades, presidential elections have played out on a shrinking battlefield, as political parties have become more ideologically unified and Americans increasingly have moved to communities where their neighbors share their political views, analysts say.

As a result, most states can be taken off the table - as either particularly friendly to a candidate, or not - before a presidential campaign even begins.

With the South and the Plains states firmly in the Republican column and the Northeast and West Coast solidly Democratic, elections since 2000 have come down to a few states that, for one reason or another, remain politically diverse and up for grabs.

This year, Obama and Romney focused the bulk of their television advertising and ground-level campaigning on nine states: Nevada (6 electoral votes), Colorado (9), Iowa (6), Wisconsin (10), Ohio (18), New Hampshire (4), Virginia (13), North Carolina (15) and Florida (29). Romney has made a late bid for Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes, but polls there have shown Obama with a consistent lead.

Some of the most competitive states, such as Virginia and Colorado, have become that way as more Democratic-leaning Hispanics and college graduates have moved in. Others such as Ohio and Iowa have been relatively untouched by demographic shifts, and the two parties have remained at a rough parity in those states.

And some states have been split down the middle.

In Wisconsin, the state capital of Madison is one of the most Democratic cities in the country, while the suburbs of Milwaukee are now among the most Republican.

Competitive presidential races in the 1960s and 1970s involved states that encompassed more than half the U.S. population. Since 2000, the presidential race has been competitive in states where roughly one-quarter of U.S. voters have lived.

Political analysts say the narrowed geographic scope of the presidential campaign is not just a symptom of increased polarization - it is also a reason the gap keeps widening. The dynamic encourages presidential candidates to ignore wide swaths of the nation and can make it more difficult for the winner of the election to govern effectively.

"Politics now isn't about issues, it's really more of a tribal affiliation," said Bill Bishop, who examined the increasing geographical polarization of the country in his 2008 book, "The Big Sort."

AN IDEOLOGICAL SHIFT

Between the 1880s and 1960, close presidential elections were rare in the United States. Since the 1960s, Americans increasingly have moved into communities that mirror their own cultural preferences, Bishop found.

A computer programmer who wants to cycle to work and eat organic produce might move to San Francisco, while someone with the same skills who wants plenty of parking and a thriving evangelical community might choose a Dallas suburb, Bishop said.

Over the same time period, political parties have become more ideologically consistent.

While Republican voters now are much more likely than Democrats to oppose abortion, the two groups showed no difference on the issue in 1988, said Columbia University professor Andrew Gelman.

"The parties are definitely more ideological than they used to be, and the voters are, too," Gelman said.

This ideological and geographical sorting has been most pronounced at the local level, but it has played out at the state level as well, as southern conservatives have switched to the Republican Party and northeastern moderates have been pushed to the Democratic Party as Republicans have emphasized conservative stands on social issues.

As politically divided as the nation is overall, presidential races are now much less likely to be competitive at the state level.

The average state margin between the winning and losing presidential candidate in close elections widened steadily from 8 percentage points in 1960 to 14.8 percentage points in 2004, according to research by Alan Abramowitz of Emory University and Kyle Saunders of Colorado State University.

The presidential battleground as a whole has shifted during this period. Virginia, for example, had been a reliably Republican state in presidential races from the 1950s until Obama carried it in 2008.

At the same time, elections have steadily shrunk in scope.

Republican Richard Nixon campaigned in all 50 states in the 1960 campaign for the White House. He lost narrowly to Democrat John F. Kennedy, but the race was competitive in 20 states, where the margin of victory for either candidate was narrower than 5 percentage points for either candidate.

Some 18 states were competitive in the 1976 matchup between Democrat Jimmy Carter and Republican Gerald Ford. In the 2000 nail-biter between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore, 12 states were in play. The battlefield shrunk to 10 states in Bush's 2004 matchup against Democrat John Kerry.

The pattern is less noticeable in years in which one candidate wins handily, such as Republican Ronald Reagan's landslide victory over Democrat Walter Mondale in 1984 or Democrat Bill Clinton's relatively easy re-election bid over Republican Bob Dole in 1996.

CLOSE NATIONALLY, NOT LOCALLY

But in close elections, the trend is clear.

The contrast is especially striking between this year's campaign and the 1976 race, in which Carter defeated Ford by 2 percentage points.

That year, 51 percent of the population lived in states where Carter ended up winning or losing narrowly. New York, California and Texas were among the most competitive states for each candidate.

Those three states, which accounted for 30 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2011, are not in play this year. New York and California are solidly Democratic, while Texas is a sure thing for Republican Romney.

The nine most competitive states this year accounted for 20 percent of the nation's GDP last year.

These states are home to a smaller slice of Americans than were in play during Bush's razor-thin win in 2000, which turned on 12 states that accounted for 27 percent of the population.

With a smaller playing field in the presidential race, the candidates have tailored their pitches to a smaller slice of the electorate than ever.

Obama has been emphasizing a revival in manufacturing, which could help him in Rust Belt states such as Ohio and Wisconsin. Romney's proposal to expand the Navy seems aimed squarely at Virginia, which is home to a large naval base and military contractors that are an important part of the state's economy.

At a time when spending cuts are needed, neither candidate has mentioned trimming the controversial federal subsidy for ethanol, which could anger corn farmers in Iowa.

This calculus can shape governing as well, said Mark Kennedy, who heads George Washington University's graduate school of political management.

"You know which issues you're going to be called on the mat for in the next election," he said.

As the election nears, those lucky enough to live in the "swing" states might not exactly be thrilled. The intense campaigning can widen already existing partisan divisions, and the barrage of television ads, telephone polling and door-knocking can get wearisome.

"People in Colorado are miserable because they're getting called up all the time," Gelman said. "There's more money and less places to spend it so it's getting a little bit unpleasant."

(Editing by David Lindsey and Doina Chiacu)

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In presidential campaign ads, political science meets excess

By Alina Selyukh

COLUMBUS, Ohio | Thu Nov 1, 2012 1:04am EDT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - It's 6:10 p.m. on a Thursday in October, just days before the U.S. elections. Before the clock hits 6:29 p.m., 11 political ads will have aired on the local NBC channel in Columbus, Ohio.

One tells voters that Democratic President Barack Obama has not proposed a legitimate economic plan for the country. Another suggests that policies of Republican candidate Mitt Romney would undermine the future for America's children.

Yet another says Romney would effectively deny many women crucial cancer screenings by proposing cuts to Planned Parenthood. The very next ad calls Obama an extremist on abortion who supports leaving babies "out to die."

Ohio is being inundated with such dueling ads in the final days before the November 6 presidential election, as Obama and Romney both look to the state's 18 electoral votes as a crucial step toward the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

The presidential race is now a fight in eight or so politically divided "swing" states, but nowhere more so than Ohio. Amid the chaos of the campaign's closing days, the state has become an arena for credibility-stretching banter, and a testing center for the growing science of political advertising.

The most expensive campaign in U.S. history (nearly $2 billion) and the free-spending independent groups that have poured more than $200 million into political ads - many of them directed at Ohio - have given analysts a high-profile chance to examine some simmering questions about such ads.

Among them: How many ads is too many, before viewers tune them out? And what do campaign ads lead voters to do, exactly?

Election-year political ads are a meticulously studied subject, and increasingly are used to target specific groups and encourage specific outcomes.

Some research, for example, suggests that pro-Democrat ads are particularly effective at swaying voters' opinions, while pro-Republican ads typically are more effective at getting party supporters to show up at the polls.

For all the analysis that has been done on campaign ads, academic and commercial research has yielded few answers on the precise impact that ads have in determining who wins an election.

That is especially true, analysts said, in the type of advertising free-for-all that Ohio residents are seeing on their televisions now - wave after wave of ads with overlapping and similarly dark, daunting messages.

Campaign ads became tiresome long ago for many Ohio residents, but some viewers figure that the ads must be working, or the campaigns wouldn't keep running them.

"I think poorly of those ads and don't think they work, but there are so many of them I think it must be not so," said JoAnne Harvey, a Columbus small business owner who, as an undecided female voter is much coveted by both campaigns.

In a reflection of how so many ads can essentially nullify one another, Harvey and another dozen Ohioans interviewed generally could not recall the details of a single campaign ad that stood above the others. Those who could acknowledged that they weren't sure which side the ad was meant to benefit.

TARGETING VIEWERS

Political advertising has become a multibillion-dollar market that some television station sales managers predict soon could be a year-round category of advertising.

It has become increasingly sophisticated in "micro-targeting," the art of going after specific groups of viewers.

For example, Democrats have been found to be more frequent television watchers than Republicans, and Democrats candidates in 2008 ran more than twice as many ads as Republicans during science-fiction shows, reality dating programs and telenovelas, according to research by Washington State University professor Travis Ridout and others.

Those programs as well as talk shows and court shows tended to skew Democratic in viewership while crime and sports programs skewed Republican, Ridout's study found.

But does the science of political advertising work?

One study completed last month found Obama's ads moving voters away from Romney, while Romney's ads were much more likely to encourage Republicans to vote, rather than shift preferences among voters.

The findings were based on a survey of more than 2,300 registered voters who said they were independents or not deeply committed to one party. They were shown one or several of the campaigns' ads by the research software company Qualtrics and the research firm Evolving Strategies.

"Romney doesn't seem to have a lot of ability to have people moving in and out of the independent pool, but he has a lot of room to change the equation in determining who turns out to vote," said Adam Schaeffer of Evolving Strategies.

'THEY CAN'T STOP NOW'

If the targets of this year's campaign ads are any guide, the presidential election will be decided by middle-aged and older white women, according to a survey of more than 1,000 buying agencies done by STRATA, a software firm whose systems help air some $50 billion worth of ads a year.

The question is whether the barrage of ads - the vast majority of them attacking a candidate, rather than promoting one - will become so overwhelming that they provoke a backlash.

Such ads "did work on me at first, and then I became a lot more cynical and realized that a lot of it is political warfare," said Harvey, who added that she voted for Obama in 2008 but was leaning toward Romney now. "It seems almost epidemic; they can't stop now that they've started."

A rule of thumb in advertising is that an ad needs to be viewed at least three times and up to 10 to be effective, said STRATA Chief Executive John Shelton.

"There's no question that once you start to go over (10), you start to, well, at least bore people," he said. "Then they might tune out. Then they might actually get ticked off."

Barbara Berry, a healthcare professional and Obama supporter from Columbus, said she pre-records TV programs and skips ads.

"I don't pay attention anymore," she said.

Since late August, more than 915,000 presidential campaign ads have aired on broadcast and national cable TV, according to the Wesleyan Media Project. In Columbus during October, ads by the campaigns and outside groups aired more than 7,000 times.

"Some of them just disappear in the noise," said Dan Bradley, general manager at the Columbus NBC affiliate WCMH-TV.

Each presidential campaign has been producing about a dozen new ads a week, basing them on daily news events - a practice that ensures that most of the ads have a short shelf life.

Romney in particular tends to place and replace ads at the spur of the moment, often in response to the news of the day.

Obama's campaign runs two ad tracks: one that changes every one or two days, the other every couple of weeks.

Ads this year "just seem to be rushed," said John Geer, a political ad researcher at Vanderbilt University. It's "almost like they've fallen prey to the fact that the campaigns have so much money, and the ability to make all these ads."

(Editing by David Lindsey and Lisa Shumaker)

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Biden, Clinton pick up campaign mantle for storm-hit Obama

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden speaks at the 30th Street Station in Philadelphia, February 8, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Larry Downing

By Lisa Lambert

COLUMBUS, Ohio | Mon Oct 29, 2012 9:02pm EDT

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Pulled back to Washington to address the storm pounding the East Coast just days before the presidential election, President Barack Obama passed his campaign banner on Monday to Vice President Joe Biden and the man he has anointed his "Secretary of Explaining Stuff," former President Bill Clinton.

Biden and Clinton joined forces at a rally in the key battleground state of Ohio, where they sought to keep alive the Obama campaign strategy of combining rallies and other personal contact with a push for early voting by Democrats ahead of the November 6 election.

Obama cut short a campaign trip to Florida to deal with Hurricane Sandy, threatening much of the East Coast.

"We went to Florida last night and he got up this morning and called me and said, ‘I gotta go back right now. This storm is getting out of hand, I gotta handle it,'" Clinton told the crowd of 4,800 at the Covelli Centre, an ice rink in Youngstown. "And I said 'Mr. President that is the right call'."

Clinton evoked Obama through stories and jokes, personalizing the president while running through a list of arguments against Republican candidate Mitt Romney. Clinton joked that the audience was "stuck" with him because his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, "has one of the two jobs in the government that doesn't permit you to be in politics."

Ohio is one of the "epicenters" of the election, according to Biden, and both Obama and Romney had planned on blanketing the state in the final days leading up to the election.

"If we win Ohio, we win this election," Biden said. pressing supporters to get out to vote.

Romney has caught up with Obama in national opinion polls and gained ground against the Democrat in surveys in Ohio too. A Rasmussen poll on Monday showed the former Massachusetts governor ahead by 50 percent to 48 percent.

The Republican also canceled campaign events on Monday night and Tuesday in Milwaukee, Iowa and Florida out of respect for the tens of millions in danger from Sandy.

The Democrats are sparing no effort to get people to the polls before election day, and many of their events in Ohio are targeted at building enthusiasm for early voting. According to Gallup, 15 percent of Obama's supporters have already voted and 33 percent intent to vote early, compared with 17 percent of Romney voters who have voted and 34 percent planning to vote.

Even though Biden dropped in on campaign offices and delivered a rousing speech in Ohio, he could not completely escape the reach of the storm and had to cancel events scheduled there for Tuesday.

Marilyn Ettinger, an Ohio woman standing inside the Covelli Centre as hail pounded outside, said she had already voted, but was worried that the storm would prevent others from doing the same. She had driven an hour for the event.

Ettinger said she had already missed seeing Obama at another event, in Cleveland, due to weather and was disappointed he would not be in Youngstown. "But the last time I saw Clinton was the last day before he won his second term, so I'm hoping that today I bring good luck to Obama."

(Editing By Alistair Bell and Sandra Maler)

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Obama, Romney curtail campaign events in face of hurricane

1 of 9. U.S. President Barack Obama walks to the Oval Office of the White House upon his return to Washington, October 29, 2012.

Credit: Reuters/Jason Reed

By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON/DAVENPORT, Iowa | Mon Oct 29, 2012 7:09pm EDT

WASHINGTON/DAVENPORT, Iowa (Reuters) - President Barack Obama suspended campaigning and returned to Washington on Monday to oversee the response to Hurricane Sandy, while his Republican rival Mitt Romney curtailed political events to show respect for the storm's potential victims.

As the storm cuts into the final week of campaigning in an especially close race for the White House, both men are trying to avoid coming across as overtly political while millions of people are imperiled by Sandy's fierce winds and driving rain.

Obama and Romney are virtually tied in the presidential contest, according to a Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll released on Monday. It showed the Democrat leading by a single percentage point eight days before Election Day.

With the hurricane dominating headlines, Obama used the bully pulpit of the White House briefing room to show he was on top of the storm response effort.

He warned Americans in Sandy's path that it could take a long time before power was restored and transportation systems were running again, and he dismissed concerns of the storm's effects on the election.

"I am not worried at this point about the impact on the election. I'm worried about the impact on families, and I'm worried about the impact on our first responders. I'm worried about the impact on our economy and on transportation," Obama told reporters.

"The election will take care of itself next week. Right now our number one priority is to make sure that we are saving lives."

Obama returned to Washington after cutting short a trip to Orlando, Florida, where he had been due to appear at a rally with former President Bill Clinton.

Romney said he was in touch with federal emergency management workers about the storm.

"The damage will probably be significant and, of course, a lot of people will be out of power for a long time," he said in Davenport, Iowa. "So hopefully your thoughts and prayers will join with mine and people across the country as you think about those folks that are in harm's way," he said, urging supporters to donate to the American Red Cross.

Romney canceled further events in Wisconsin on Monday night and in Iowa and Florida on Tuesday. Those states are out of Sandy's path, but the former Massachusetts governor does not want to be seen to be focusing only on the campaign in the midst of potential national disaster.

"Governor Romney believes this is a time for the nation and its leaders to come together to focus on those Americans who are in harm's way," said Romney communications director Gail Gitcho.

SWING STATE BATTLE

Ohio is one of a handful of political swing states that will determine the winner of the November 6 election, and both candidates have spent many days campaigning there.

Obama has held a consistent, if narrow, lead in the state, and his advisers believe his support of the U.S. auto bailout will put him over the top there. Ohio is home to the nation's second largest auto industry.

But a Rasmussen Reports daily tracking poll showed Romney ahead on Monday, getting support from 50 percent of likely voters compared to 48 percent who backed the president.

Clinton, who has been a popular surrogate for Obama, continued to hold events he was to have held with the president, both in Florida and in Ohio, where he joined Vice President Joe Biden on a campaign swing.

"I support Barack Obama because I think he's got a better jobs plan and a better jobs record, a better budget plan, a better education plan, a better healthcare plan than his opponent," Clinton told a cheering crowd in Youngstown, Ohio.

Romney's running mate, Congressman Paul Ryan, campaigned in Florida, telling a crowd of 2,300 in Fernandina Beach that the Romney campaign would be turning its attention to helping people affected by the storm.

"We're staying in touch with regional leaders. We're offering assistance. We are collecting storm relief and supplies in our field offices in Virginia and Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, up and down the Eastern Seaboard," Ryan said.

Obama officials said the president's campaign schedule would be determined on a day-to-day basis. He scrapped another event scheduled for Tuesday in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and would remain at the White House, aides said.

Obama delivered pizzas to a local campaign office in Florida on Sunday night and told volunteers that the burden would increase for them because he would have to curtail his campaign activities there in coming days.

Florida, Wisconsin and Iowa also are critical swing states in the election, along with Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia.

(Additional reporting by Steve Holland, Sam Jacobs, and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Alistair Bell and Paul Simao)

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