Obama and Romney end final campaign push ahead of election day – US politics live

 Obama and Romney hold final rallies on election eve
An estimated 31 million people have already cast their vote
Romney declares: 'Tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow'
Polls show no clear leader but edge for Obama
 Read our latest campaign news summary
Obama Jay-Z and Bruce Springsteen
Barack Obama on stage with Jay-Z and Bruce Springsteen at a rally in Columbus, Ohio. Photograph: Jason Reed/Reuters

Right, that's it for tonight, there isn't a scrap of political news left to be blogged. We'll be back early tomorrow, and going right through until ... whenever.

The Guardian's Adam Gabbatt talks to Mitt Romney supporters at the end of the Republican candidate's final rally in Manchester tonight:

As the crowd headed out of the Romney rally into the freezing New Hampshire night there was talk of energy and enthusiasm ahead of the polls opening in just a few hours time.

"I love Mitt," said Roberta Cragg, from Brookline in New Hampshire.

"I had already made up my mind, but I think he acted like a president tonight." Cragg, 54, a homemaker, said Romney had "brought everyone together".

"It was wonderful."

Peter Galamaga, a high school English teacher who lives in Bedford, New Hampshire, had something to compare the mood to.

"I was at one of John McCain's events four years ago. The intensity and the energy, you can't even compare it."

Galamaga, 46, said it was "a great finish to the campaign".

"We believe very strongly that we're going to win and there's that energy."

Tony Pare, who works as vice president of mergers and acquisitions for a medical device company, had driven to New Hampshire from neighbouring Massachusetts.

"I enjoyed it a lot," he said. "I'm surprised he's still holding up so well seeing as he's done four states today. He did a great job. I'm very motivated."

Mitt Romney rally in New Hampshire
Mitt Romney at a rally at the Verizon Wireless Arena in Manchester, New Hampshire. Photograph: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images

Hart's Location win for Obama

The second oddball early voting location, tiny Hart's Location in New Hampshire, has gone for Barack Obama. Obama won 23 votes, Romney got 9 and Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson received one vote.

For those who want to know, in 2008 it was Obama 17, McCain 10.

So aggregating Dixville Notch and Hart's Location: Obama 28, Romney 14, Johnson 1. That's the official tally so far.

So what's up with Hart's Location? Explained, via AP:

Hart's Location began the early-bird voting tradition in 1948. Most residents of the White Mountain village then were railroad workers who had to be on the job during normal polling hours. By 1964 the townspeople had grown weary of the media attention and the late hours and did away with the practice. They revived it in 1996.

The crowd that braved the cold in Manchester, New Hampshire, to hear Mitt Romney was in a celebratory mood, reports the Guardian's Adam Gabbatt on the scene:

When the doors opened to the Romney rally at 8pm some people had been lining up for three hours. At 10.30pm supporters were still taking their seats.

The crowd kept themselves warm with a Mexican wave before the lights finally dimmed at 10.45pm, Kid Rock and his band of around 10 people climbing into the spotlight. Red, white and blue glow sticks were waved liberally among the 12,000 Romney supporters as Rock, wearing black t-shirt and black leather hat, swaggered through Sweet Home Alabama and other hits.

Rock had the crowd in a near frenzy as he ended his performance with a piano-top rendition of Born Free, the song Romney has adopted as his campaign motif, before Romney appeared on stage in white shirt and tie, alongside his wife Ann.

The former Massachusetts governor is not renowned for whipping up crowds, and he was true to form here, his sedate performance hardly capitalising on the rock concert vibe that had been laid on a plate for him. Still, Romney got big cheers from a crowd that had waited hours in the freezing New Hampshire cold to see his final nighttime rally before the polls open.

"This is where my campaign began. This state got me started," he said. "Tomorrow your votes and your work right here in New Hampshire will help me become the next president of the United States."

There were cheers in all the right places – even when Romney chipped in the inane line "Tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow" - with the vehemence of the crowd prompting Romney to remark "My goodness," at points, but this was not a new speech, with much of it similar to an address Romney gave in Virginia earlier on Monday.

His supporters either didn't know or didn't care however, and whether because of Mitt Romney or in spite of him, the mood as people filed out into the crisp Manchester night felt celebratory.

Mitt Romney final rally in New Hampshire
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney shakes hands with supporters in Manchester, New Hampshire. Photograph: Darren McCollester/Getty Images

NYT's Silver: 92% chance of Obama victory

Has Nate Silver's 538 polling model taken the Dixville Notch shock result into account? Who knows. But as things stand – and presumably there will be no new information to change this – Silver's black box has Barack Obama with a 92% chance of winning the electoral college vote.

Dixville Notch: it's a tie

OK so here's the Dixville Notch result... they are doing the congress and gubernatorial votes first. And now the presidential vote from the 10 electors, and the precinct captain announces:

This has never happened before in Dixville, we have a tie, five votes each.

Now there's an omen for America. Except that Dixville has two registered Democrats, three registered Republicans, and five registered independents. So, ah, Obama won indies 60% to 40%.

Dixville Notch voting
A town clerk makes final adjustments to the voting station in Dixville Notch, New Hampshire. Photograph: Rogerio Barbosa/AFP/Getty Images

Dixville Notch is live on all cable news networks now. Sadly on CNN, so is Piers Morgan.

Here's some AP background:

While most of the East Coast is asleep, residents of two tiny villages in northern New Hampshire will head to the polls at midnight to cast the first Election Day votes in the nation.

Dixville Notch has 10 voters and Hart's Location has 37 (there were 36, but one more registered at the last minute.) The towns have been enjoying their first-vote status since 1948 and it's a matter of pride to get everyone to the polls.

Hart's Location Selectman Mark Dindorf says you could call it a friendly competition to see who gets votes tallied first, although he says Hart's Location is a town and Dixville Notch is a precinct.

Farrah Bostic (@farrahbostic)

Dixville Notch has chosen 7 of the past 13 winners! WHO NEEDS NATE SILVER?

November 6, 2012

Next up: Dixville Notch and Hart's Location, two tiny precincts in New Hampshire that open, close and count their votes on the dot of midnight. It means nothing but it's a bit of fun – and these are the first real votes of the election campaign, even if there are only about 30 of them.

Expect Mitt Romney to win.

After Barack Obama's speech to the faithful in Iowa, Paul Harris take the temperature among the crowd estimated to have been around 20,000 in Des Moines:

It was a message that worked well with Chris Chrzaszcz. “He is a great president,” said Chrzaszcz, a former Hillary Clinton supporter in 2008 who has been delighted at the way Bill Clinton has been hitting the campaign trail. “Bill Clinton was the best president we ever had. I loved his speech in Charlotte, it was all about “do the math”,” said Chrzaszcz.

The 58-year-old Des Moines real estate agent said that he had no time for the Romney camp which had played fast and loose with the truth all year and shifted its positions. “They lie all the time. Just tell the truth. Stop changing your mind,” he said.

He also enjoyed this bit of history, watching Obama’s last rally made him not mind that the president had defeated Hillary Clinton four years ago. “I think he has done an excellent job. He started in a big hole in 2008. That was a dangerous situation and he got us out of it,” he said.

But the election is not so much about message now. It is about practicalities.

Obama for America campaign worker Kimberley Boggus spoke before the big names came on stage and gave a speech long on detail about the in and outs of tomorrow’s vote. Now that the rubber is hitting the road, it is all about the practicalities of getting the vote out. But still, the young woman was aware that history was being made. “Iowa is where the journey began. This is where the resident started the course,” she said. “Iowa once again it is our moment, it is time to finish what we started.”

But perhaps the last word should be with Obama. “I am not ready to give up the fight he said. I have a lot of fight left in me,” he said in the middle of his speech. He left the stage to work the rope line and tomorrow will now decide if he gets to stay in the ring.

Barack Obama final rally Des Moines Iowa
President Barack Obama greets supporters after speaking at his final campaign stop tonight, in Des Moines, Iowa. Photograph: Charlie Neibergall/AP

The Guardian's Paul Harris is on hand in Iowa tonight to see the final rally as a candidate in the career of Barack Obama:

President Barack Obama concluded his last ever campaign rally in the state which launched his remarkable bid for the presidency. In the Iowan capital Des Moines, Obama spoke to a packed downtown rally of 20,000 people braving freezing temperatures.

It was a moment of poignant memories for the First Couple. “I have come back to Iowa one more time to ask for your vote,” he said. “This is where our movement began.”

Obama recounted tales of his early campaign, talking of a bare bones operation in 2008 that turned American politics on its head. “You welcomed me and Michelle into your homes,” he said. He also told a lengthy anecdote about how his old campaign slogan of “fired up, ready to go” came about at a South Carolina event.

Michelle Obama also took the stage and reminisced about past campaign events in Iowa, including – apparently – once seeing her spouse’s face carved out of butter. The First Lady spoke softly, despite a microphone, and was clearly feeling the magnitude of the moment. “This is an emotional time for us. This is the final event of my husband’s final campaign,” she said. She appealed to voters to remember the promise of four years ago, here in the state where it all began. “He stayed true to himself,” she said.

Rock star Bruce Springsteen had sought to warm up the chilly crowd and played songs with none-too-subtle titles like No Surrender and The Promised Land and Land of Hope and Dreams. But the mood overall – perhaps because of the low temperatures and late hour or just because it came at the end of a gruelling campaign – felt a little subdued, though undoubtedly cheerful. For a true moment of history it was somewhat reflexive with little wild or loud cheering from the large crowd.

Obama himself sounded some of the old riffs from his 2008 campaign, appealing to Americans as a whole. “We fall and rise together as one people,” he said.

Then he touted his first term credentials, incuding the ending of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq and the killing of Osama bin Laden and rising home values. Then he appealed to Iowa voters to stick with him at tomorrow’s ballot boxes. “We are not done yet on this journey. We have got more road to travel,” he said. But it was not all positive, saying Mitt Romney wanted to take America backwards. “after all that we have fought through together we cannot give up on change now,” Obama said.

Barack Obama final rally in Iowa
Barack Obama speaks during his last rally in Des Moines, Iowa. The rally was held just outside Obama's first headquarters from the 2008 campaign, where his first march to the White House started. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Barack Obama finishes this rally with his familiar rallying cry of "Fired up! Ready to go!" in call and response. It was a pretty quick speech, and the standard stump speech element was quite short.

He reveals that he asked Edith Childs, the "Fired up!" originator, to come to Iowa with him. But she turned him down in favour of canvassing in North Carolina. "I’m still fired up, but I’ve got work to do," Obama says she told him.

Obama ended with:

Tomorrow Iowa, let's remind the rest of the world why America is the greatest place in the world. Let's go! Let's go vote! God bless the United States of America!

Mark Knoller (@markknoller)

And with that story, Pres Obama fired up his crowd and ended the 101st and final rally of his re-election campaign.

November 6, 2012

Obama's telling the "fired up" story from the 2008 primary in Greenwood, South Carolina. It's a classic. Watch it live right now:

Sam Graham-Felsen (@samgf)

Heads up America: this is the last time Obama will ever tell the Edith Childs story. Watch history unfold: BarackObama.com/live

November 6, 2012

Final campaign rallies: Obama v Romney

So now both candidates are speaking at the same time, Obama in Des Moines, Iowa, and Romney in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Flipping between the two there's quite a contrast at this point, with Romney in his "everything is going to heck in a heckbasket" phase of his stump speech.

Obama, though, is still banging on about hope.

Erin McPike (@ErinMcPike)

Of note about these final speeches: Romney's is about Obama; Obama's is about his theme from 2008.

November 6, 2012

Meanwhile, over in New Hampshire, Mitt Romney is taking the stage, to huge cheers.

Jon Ward (@jonward11)

After 2.5 minute long ear splitting ovation for Romney, he tries to start speaking and they erupt again

November 6, 2012

Funny how after a year and six billion dollars or whatever, we're all still back in Iowa and New Hampshire. There is no escape.

"I wasn't this gray when I first came to Iowa," says Barack Obama, ruefully. Although Obama is largely drawing on his standard stump speech here, there's a lot of references back to the early days in Iowa. and the glory days of the 2007-08 Democratic primaries:

Iowa, you taught me to bet on you. You taught me to bet on hope.

Obama on stage at final event in Iowa

After an introduction by Michelle Obama, Barack Obama bounds on stage in Des Moines, Iowa:

I've come back to Iowa one more to time to ask for your vote.

Obama is reminding the crowd here about the start of his campaign back in 2007, and talking about the tough times at the start, when his one campaign office had no heating:

You welcomed me and Michelle into your homes. You picked us up when we needed a lift.... You inspired us.

It's true: Barack Obama owes Iowa a lot, and he seems to have a special affinity with the state.

Obama's voice sounds a little hoarse, but he looks full of energy.

Jake Tapper (@jaketapper)

Lt. Bob Suarez, Special Operations with the City of Des Moines Fire Department, says 20k at POTUS's final campaign rally.

November 6, 2012

A pigeon arrives with a message from the Guardian's Adam Gabbatt, shivering in Manchester, New Hampshire without a wifi signal – which is kind of ironic since the venue is named the Verizon Wireless Arena.

Here's a Adam's report from the scene of Mitt Romney's last event tonight:

The Verizon wireless arena is almost full now. When i looked outside a few minutes ago the line was still snaking off around the building. Some people will surely be disappointed. we're rattling through the local politicians here.

Wannabe governor Ovide Lamontagne was the most recent, urging the crowd to go out tomorrow and "Show the world what its like to be the greatest nation in the world."

Lamontagne said all the Democrats had in their election armory was "scare tactics".

"What Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have is an ability to restore this great country to greatness and decency and to make sure that everyone of us is proud to be an American."

Coincidentally, I was speaking to a someone whose wife used to work for Lamontagne in a bar before. (Escaping the cold.)

Brad Atwood, 59, said while he will vote Romney tomorrow, and will support him here tonight, he has actually soured on him over the last two weeks.

"It's as a result of the last couple of debates," he said. "There was an attitude." Atwood said he had been shocked that Romney "would talk to another another human being that way".

"Would you treat another man that way and be so condescending?"

One more thing to note: the crowd have been given those blow up things [editor's note: thundersticks] to bang together, and it's making quite a racket. What's wrong with a good old-fashioned handclap?

Finally, something worth watching on C-Span: a Bruce Springsteen concert from Des Moines, Iowa. He's doing warm-up for Obama and he's done a topical song that includes lyrics such as:

Romney got schooled by Obama, Ryan got smoked by Joe Biden.

Mm. It must be cold outside there since everyone in crowd is in hats and coats. But Bruce is in shirtsleeves with just a waistcoat and his guitar. He's 63 years old.

So if you were getting all comfortable with what the polls are telling us about the presidential election – here's a spine-chilling tale of what can go wrong, via Utah's Salt Lake Tribune:

The Salt Lake County mayoral race between Republican Mark Crockett and Democrat Ben McAdams is almost dead even, much closer than the 10-point lead a Salt Lake Tribune poll gave Crockett last week, after the pollster revised the numbers Monday.

J Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research in Jacksonville, Florida, said the altered figures give Crockett 44% of the vote to 43% for McAdams, with 13% of voters still undecided. It has a 4 percent margin of error. Figures released Friday had given the Republican a 10-point edge (48% to 38%, with 14% undecided).

"Much closer than the 10-point lead"? Sigh. Why is it Florida, always Florida?

During the halftime of Monday Night Football on ESPN, both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have supplied taped interviews. It's all about sports, mainly, which Romney insists on calling "sport" in the European fashion.

Jordan Fabian (@Jordanfabian)

Obama on ESPN: "Political reporters are like sports reporters. You lose a game, you're a bum. You win a game, you're a God."

November 6, 2012

Anyway, it turns out both men love some sports. Or sport.

In Manchester, New Hampshire awaiting Mitt Romney's arrival, Senator Kelly Ayotte is doing warming up – not literally, because it's freezing – and mentions this:

You think it’s easy to be a Republican governor in Massachusetts? Please.

Romney himself makes a meal of this too – so let's do a bit of fact checking shall we? Before Mitt Romney there were preceding him three Republican governors of Massachusetts – one of whom, Jane Swift, Romney elbowed out of the way to take the GOP nomination. In fact, Republicans held the statehouse from 1991 to 2007: 16 years. One of them, William Weld, was even re-elected. So enough with this "Republican governors of Massachusetts are rare, fragile creatures".

Paul Harris (@paulxharris)

They have just handed out hand warmers to the press in Des Moines. It's that freeeezing.

November 6, 2012

Optimism from the Tampa Bay Times: "Five things that could go wrong on Election Day in Florida".

Not listed as one of the five: zombie attack; hurricane; Casey Anthony; sentient alligators; citizens queuing for hours to actually vote.

Republican spin doctor Karl Rove isn't exactly going overboard for a Mitt Romney victory. He told Fox News viewers that Romney would win 285 electoral college votes to Obama's 253.

Rove has Romney winning Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, New Hampshire, and North Carolina. Plausible enough, given the polls – although the Ohio and New Hampshire polls are going to have to be pretty wrong in that case.

So why the relatively narrow margin of victory? Simple enough: if Romney wins, no-one will care because Rove "called it" right. If Romney loses, Rove can say, oh well Ohio, and retain his reputation as a wizard. Why go out on a limb?

One of the most astonishing things about the 2012 election campaign was Mitt Romney's ability to fend off pressure to follow precedent – including that of his own father – and publish his recent tax returns. The Associated Press notes that this is not Romney's only mystery:

The Republican presidential candidate refuses to identify his biggest donors who "bundle" money for his campaign. He often declines to say who's meeting with him or what he's doing for hours at a time. He puts limits on media access to his fundraisers. And he resists releasing all of his tax returns, making just a single year public after facing pressure to do so.

Given that trustworthiness was a hurdle for Romney in any case, not disclosing his tax returns – given his extraordinary wealth and sources of income – can only have hurt him.

The National Review's Robert Costa is one of the best reporters covering the Romney campaign out there – and he has a good insight into its final gameplan and route to the elusive 270 electoral college votes:

Yet as Pennsylvania rises, Ohio continues to be an uphill battle for Romney. He’s heading to Cleveland, part of a manufacturing region in northeast Ohio, hoping to win over disgruntled blue-collar workers in the final hours. “We’re doing everything we can, but I don’t see a lot in Ohio that points to a clear Republican victory,” says a Romney insider. “The president has been hammering us for months,” and the auto bailout is popular.

The Guardian's Paul Harris is waiting to hear Barack Obama in Iowa tonight, and he takes the opportunity to look back at what it all means in what will almost certainly be Obama's final rally as a candidate for office:

Whatever happens in the election tomorrow, tonight’s Obama event is still historic: the last campaign rally Barack Obama is likely to ever give where he asks Americans for their vote. Even if he wins, Obama will not run for office again. This is it.

The choice of Iowa seems political, sentimental and practical. Political because Iowa’s six electoral college votes could really matter in a tight election. Iowa is a swing state and up for grabs and some serious presidential attention could be vital. Sentimental because this is the state were it all began way back in January 2008, when Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the caucus here, proving a black outsider could win over white voters with a powerful message of change. Practical because its near Chicago. Once this event is over then it is a short hop home to wait for the results.

Certainly the crowds are showing up as thousands of people queued through the streets of downtown Des Moines, braving chilly air and a several-hour-long wait. Though their patience is almost certainly helped by the added attraction of a free Bruce Springsteen concert. You do not get to see The Boss that often in these parts. The event is happening in a knot of streets called the East Village (no relative to the New York neighbourhood). Already a drum band is playing as a large crowd packs into the area, stretching back to Des Moine's Capitol building.

Shannon Minschall, a 41-year-old nursing home worker, scored seats in the front row thanks to his sister being the sign language interpreter for the evening. He was exceedingly positive about Obama’s chances of winning the state. “I think he will take it by at least four points,” he said. “Considering the people he’s had road blocking him in Congress for four years, I think he has done a good job.” But Minschall did admit there was an enthusiasm gap among Democrats. “We don’t have the same enthusiasm as last time but people will show up. They know it is too important,” he added. But in the meantime there is history in the making: Obama’s last rally.

Which, makes this correspondent a little nostalgic. I was in the convention hall when Obama gave his 2004 speech in Boston. I went to a 2006 fundraiser at Conde Naste in Manhattan when he was mulling a run (and the mistaken conventional wisdom was he would not). Then came 2008 versus Hillary and after that, the battle versus John McCain and Sarah Palin and the Great Recession. Now it's 2012 and his last ever campaign rally. Even though Obama might have a second term ahead of him, it all shows how remarkably quickly American politics can work. It also makes me feel distressingly old.

Barack Obama in Ohio
Barack Obama speaks to supporters in Columbus, Ohio, tonight. Photograph: TJ Kirkpatrick/Corbis

Here's a public service announcement on behalf of the Committee To Avoid Exit Poll Madness. Listen to these wise words:

Sean Davis (@seanmdav)

PROTIP: Exit polls are garbage. Don't consume the garbage. Don't try to get a whiff of the garbage. Ignore the garbage and keep walking.

November 6, 2012

Friends don't let friends tweet or email exit polls. Rewind to 2004 if you don't believe me.

And here's the inevitable denial to the Huffington Post article mentioned earlier, about Chris Christie turning down a request to appear alongside Mitt Romney yesterday, via CNN:

An adviser to Chris Christie is flatly denying a report that the New Jersey governor turned down an offer from the Romney campaign to appear at a Sunday night campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

Asked if the Romney campaign extended the invitation, longtime Christie confidante Bill Palatucci answered with a simple "No."

We'll find out the truth sometime circa 2013, plus or minus a year.

The Guardian's Adam Gabbatt is in a chilly Manchester, New Hampshire, awaiting Mitt Romney's appearance, who won't be speaking there for another two and a half hours.

It's freezing cold in Manchester, but it hasn't stopped people coming out in their thousands. The lines stretch around the back of the Verizon Wireless Arena, which is lit up in red white and blue. They've even got a high-strength spotlight, strafing the night sky.

At the front of the line at 7.30pm was Tom Lhereux, wearing a wooly hat to keep out the cold. He's voting Romney because "Obama's spending is putting our country into hell".

"Let's see, we're $16tn in debt," Lhereux said. "And all he does is hob nob with celebrities.... He's lying and covering up the whole Benghazi tragedy too."

Romney will win despite some polls suggesting otherwise, because "they're not counting the independent vote," Lhereux said.

The crowd was buoyed briefly at around 7.45pm when Ovide Lamontagne, the Republican candidate for governor, turned up and shook a few hands before hurrying inside.

Romney is not due here until 11pm, although he is officially down for 9.30pm, so even once people are inside they face a long wait.

"Romney's got a five point plan to get jobs back to unemployed people. He cares about people," said a woman who gave her name as Sophie.

"Thumbs down," Sophie, 57, said when asked what she thought of Obama. She extended two thumbs and pointed them to the ground as she spoke. "He didn't do his job. He's fired tomorrow. We're going to fire him."

The very first votes of the election will be counted just after midnight eastern time, when tiny Dixville Notch and Hart's Location take advantage of New Hampshire voting laws to declare a result in an eagerly-awaited photo-opportunity.

At Dixville Notch, well, things are different, via AP:

For more than 50 years, voters in a township tucked close to the Canadian border have cast some of the nation's first ballots for president at the historic Balsams Grand Resort Hotel. But not this year.

Although the hotel will be closed for the November 6 election, Dixville's 10 registered voters will continue the midnight tradition at a local ski lodge.

The nearly 150-year-old resort was officially closed in September 2011. Two local businessmen who bought it for $2.3m hope to re-open it next year.

In 2008, Barack Obama beat John McCain by a combined 32 to 16 votes from the two sites. It's a nice way to end the evening.

The final countdown

So what's left on this final day of frantic campaigning? Here's the rest of this evening's entertainment, in eastern time:

Barack Obama speaks at 10.50pm in Des Moines, Iowa

Mitt Romney speaks at 11pm in Manchester, New Hampshire

Paul Ryan speaks at 9.15pm in Vienna, Ohio, and 11.15pm in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Joe Biden's final rally was in Richmond, Virginia, and has just ended

Joe Biden Virginia
Joe Biden and his wife Jill arrive this evening for a rally in Richmond, Virginia. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Florida wasn't the only place where there long lines today for early voting. The crucial swing state of Ohio also had voters waiting to cast their ballot, reports the Wall Street Journal:

A 90-minute long line snaked out the door at the early voting center here Monday, where officials say the number of people casting ballots in person ahead of Election Day is nearly 50% greater than 2008.

“We’re getting about 700 to 800 votes an hour,” said Ben Piscitelli, a spokesman for the Franklin County Board of Elections.

Paul Ryan makes final pitch in Iowa

Paul Ryan Iowa
Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan waves at supporters at a campaign event in in Des Moines, Iowa, this evening. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP

The Guardian's Paul Harris witnesses Paul Ryan's last stand in Iowa tonight:

The mood at Paul Ryan’s rally at an airport hangar in Des Moines was raucous and loud, despite the somewhat intimidating prospect of the far bigger Obama/Springsteen shindig taking place later downtown. Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley even compared President Barack Obama to King George III. “We got to make sure we have a president that doesn't think he’s king,” he said, in attack line that was new – and bizarre - to me.

Local Iowa state senator Bard Zaun struck a more reasoned tone: rejecting Obama more from sorrow than anger. “He is a good man. A family man. But it is about job performance,” Zaun said. That sounded fair enough for a Republican on election eve. But then Zaun spoiled it with the old canard that Obama has taken America on some sort of dangerous foreign tangent. “Is there anyone here who would like to become a European nation?” Zaun asked. “No!” the crowd roared back. But, look, just this week it was announced the US has crashed out of the top ten of the world’s most prosperous nations. And of those ten nations? Seven are European. That doesn’t sound too bad.

Ryan himself emerged to chants of “one more day!” from the audience, which was around 1,000 strong. Ryan, whose voice hinted at being hoarse after a punishing schedule in recent weeks, hit his usual notes of painting tomorrow’s vote as generational in importance.

“We are not just picking a president for four years. We are picking a path for our nation,” he said. He talked about the economy and the need for change, painting the familiar picture of a broken country, high joblessness and mounting debts, both personal and national. “We can fix this,” he said.

Then he used a more recent attack line picking up on comments Obama made for supporters to vote out of “revenge”. The comment has been made into a radio ad already playing on Iowa airwaves. “That is not hope and change. That is not aspirational. That is not what we do in this country. Mitt Romney and I are asking for your votes out of love of country,” he said, which prompted a huge cheer from the audience.

The Los Angeles Times reports that there were long lines in Tampa and elsewhere Florida again today, as anxious voters took up absentee ballots rather than risk chaos on election day itself:

While early voting technically ended on Saturday, offices in five Florida counties provided an alternate method that amounted to the same thing: They opened their offices and passed out absentee ballots that will be due before the polls close on Tuesday. Some voters here went out to their cars, filled them out and stuck them in a locked metal box outside the office door.

“I just wanted to go and get it over with,” said Linwood Poissonnier. “Last year I stood in line for an hour and a half.”

Even with the fewer days, there were 166,917 votes already in Hillsborough County by Monday afternoon – 20% more than in 2008, according to Travis Abercrombie, spokesman for the Hillsborough elections department. About 22% of the county’s voters have already cast ballots, he said.

voters wait in Florida
Voters stand in a long line today outside the Supervisor of Elections office in West Palm Beach, Florida. Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters

HuffPost: Chris Christie snubbed Romney appearance

The Huffington Post's Jon Ward has a hell of a scoop: Chris Christie wouldn't appear on stage with Mitt Romney yesterday:

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who was effusive in his praise of President Barack Obama when the two leaders toured damage from Hurricane Sandy last week, turned down a request by Mitt Romney to appear with him at a rally on Sunday night in Pennsylvania, The Huffington Post has learned.

...

The Romney rally was held at a farm in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, not more than 20 minutes from Trenton, the New Jersey capital. The physical proximity of the event to New Jersey only added to questions in the Romney campaign about why Christie chose not to come.

"You can't tell me he couldn't have gone over there for a night rally," a Romney campaign source told HuffPost.

This story is a cat looking for a group of Republican pigeons. How long before the inevitable denial appears?

If you have had enough of presidential and even Congressional election races, but you want to further down the rabbit hole, here's the Daily Kos round-up of elections for state legislatures and ballot measures, on a state-by-state basis.

There is a lot of detail in there – including the possibility that Hawaii's 24-1 Democratic majority in the state senate might increase to 25-0 – but let's have a look at Wisconsin, a battleground state in so many ways over the past few years:

Even though the Wisconsin Democrats managed to take over the state Senate via recall elections earlier this year (and now hold a 17-16 edge), that always seemed like something of a pyrrhic victory because they'd be facing a new set of elections in November, under the redistricting maps that the legislature forced through when both chambers were under Republican control. Control will come down to a few close races, but redistricting changes in the GOP's favor have handicappers seeing the chamber as a "Lean Republican"—which would promptly restore the Republican trifecta there. The Republicans have a bigger built-in edge in the Assembly (up 59-39), so even with Democratic gains that's also likely to stay in their hands.

Total political-geek-overload alert: the following tweet should not be approached unless you feel comfortable making comparisons between 2008 and 2012 Virginia early voting patterns.

Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict)

VA EARLY VOTE: On Fri, turnout was just 67.6% of '08 absentees in Obama counties, 75.8% in McCain. Now 83.3% in Obama, 86.7% in McCain

November 5, 2012

The key fact here is that Obama won Virginia by 6.3 percentage points in 2008, meaning he has a little leeway. But Republicans are more likely to vote on the day so ... I warned you.

By the way, for those of you using the Twitter, here's my list of Top 50 accounts to follow for across-the-board political coverage on election day.

Good news for those in New York affected by Sandy:

Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo)

BREAKING: Registered voters in #Rockland #Westchester #LI or #NYC: you can vote tom by affidavit ballot anywhere in #NYS #electionday

November 5, 2012

The Guardian's Ed Pilkington hears Barack Obama's final plea to the voters of Ohio, and detects a note of weariness:

Barack Obama has just made the last campaign speech that he'll ever have to make in Ohio, his 29th in this most heavily trampled battleground state this year alone. It wasn't so much a rousing finale or a grand farewell as a limp across the finishing line.

The president's voice was hoarse, he barely strayed once from the auto-cued script, and at the end, when he usually crescendos to the big conclusion, he sounded like he could barely get the words out. That's what six months of pretty non-stop life on the stump does to you.

Still, the 15,500 crowd in the Nationwide Arena hadn't heard the speech many times as I now have, so they weren't to know any of that. They gave Obama the biggest roar of the night when he came on stage, which was no mean achievement bearing in mind Jay-Z was the warm-up act.

They cheered lustily when Obama invoked Romney's policies on abortion: “We don't need a bunch of politicians in Washington making decisions that women are capable of making for themselves”.

They cheered mightily when Obama repeated his by-now mantra: “After four years, you know me by now”. And they laughed when he said: “You know I fight for change, I've got the scars and the grey hair to prove it.”

Before he crawled to his closing statement, Obama said: “I've got a whole lot of fight left in me Ohio, and I hope you have too.” I've heard him say that line several times, and it's always been delivered as a clarion call to arms. This time though it sounded more like a pleas for mercy. Let this be over, Ohio, I'm running on fumes.

Obama supporters Ohio
Supporters listen to Barack Obama during a campaign rally in Ohio today. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images

And there's a final brace of Reuters/Ipsos battleground state polls – and Obama is batting three from four:

Virginia: Obama 48%, Romney 46%

Ohio: Obama 50%, Romney 46%

Florida: Romney 48%, Obama 47%

Colorado: Obama 48%, Romney 47%

I'll add a link when it comes through.

Sam Stein (@samsteinhp)

and......... I think that those are the last polls of the cycle, save the exits. Am i wrong?

November 5, 2012

Final Gallup poll: Romney 50%, Obama 49%

The very last opinion polls are coming in now – hard to believe. There's a final last ultimate Gallup poll:

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are within one percentage point of each other in Gallup's final pre-election survey of likely voters, with Romney holding 49% of the vote, and Obama 48%. After removing the 3% of undecided voters from the results and allocating their support proportionally to the two major candidates, Gallup's final allocated estimate of the race is 50% for Romney and 49% for Obama.

Lots of interesting stuff in there, including this:

Thirty-two percent of likely voters interviewed Nov. 1-4 say they have already voted, while another 6% still intend to vote before Election Day. Early voters' preferences closely mirror the overall result, with 49% having already cast their ballot for Obama and 48% for Romney.

The Guardian's Rory Carroll says there is a "strong buzz" at Mitt Romney's campaign headquarters in Colorado, outside Denver:

Dozens of volunteers are making calls, distributing yard signs and pooling information. "We've done twice as many phone calls compared to 2008 and four times as many door knocks," said Chris Walker, the HQ manager:

"We're feeling good about our ground game. Our side is energized. The economy is issue one, two and three."

All the volunteers were white but Walker said Romney was reaching Latinos. Take that with a pinch of salt but there's no denying the GOP has fired up its base in Colorado.

Jan Howman, 73, who has made 16,000 call for Romney since June, said: "Obama has not reached across the aisle. He's a divider."

Noted British news source the Daily Mail has a fantastic exclusive:

Mitt Romney is ahead by a single percentage point in Ohio, according to internal polling data provided to Mail Online by a Republican party source.

Internal campaign polling completed last night by campaign pollster Neil Newhouse has Romney three points up in New Hampshire, two points up in Iowa and dead level in Wisconsin and - most startlingly - Pennsylvania.

As a Democratic senator once told me, quoting your own internal polls in support of your candidacy at this point in an election campaign is akin to self-pleasuring: it helps if you have an active imagination.

Ed Pilkington is at the second Obama rally of three today. This one's in Columbus, Ohio.

Meet the youngest Democrat in the crowd at Barack Obama's final rally in Ohio, which has just ended. Riley Farmer, three months old, seemed to be enjoying herself, despite a very loud sound system and bustle from a crowd that must have been heading for 20,000.

What's a three-month-old baby got to do with a presidential election, I hear you say. Well, it's true Riley wasn't talking politics, or anything else for that matter. But her mother sure was, and her daughter defined her politics. Rahsheeda, 27, said she'd already voted for Obama, and when I asked her why she said that 60% of her decision had been all about her very young daughter.

“Particularly pertaining to women's rights,” Rahsheeda said, bouncing young Riley on her knee. “With Romney talking about taking away Planned Parenthood, cutting student loans, taking health insurance away from poor families, what kind of future is she going to have? Her future definitely depends on this election.”

There you go. A baby, barely three months in the world, defining why tomorrow, through her mother's eyes, is such a very important day.

Rahsheeda Farmer with her three-month-old son, Riley, at an Obama rally in Ohio
Rahsheeda Farmer with her three-month-old son, Riley, at an Obama rally in Columbus, Ohio. Photograph: Ed Pilkington

Pity poor Paul Ryan, campaigning in the shadow of Barack Obama's arrival later tonight, as the Guardian's Paul Harris reports:

In Iowa's capital of Des Moines, Mitt Romney's running mate Paul Ryan is trying to steal a little bit of Barack Obama's thunder. While the president is planning a massive downtown rally in the company of the First Lady and Bruce Springsteen, Ryan is holding a gathering in the decidedly more modest surroundings of Des Moine's airport. In a fairly freezing aircraft hanger perhaps a 1,000 or so people are starting to gather and wait for the Wisconsin congressman, who will speak under a massive - and hopeful - banner that states: "Victory in Iowa."

Troy Granahan, a 34-year-old accountant, had brought his young son to the event - which was a first political rally for both of them. Granahan is a solid social issues voter in a state where evangelicals make up a core part of the Republican case. "It is the social issues that are important to me. But I agree with about 95% of what the party says," Granahan said. But he would not predict a Romney win tomorrow. "It's pretty half and half. It is a toss up. Hopefully it will go Republican," he added.

Obama hits 50% in final tracking poll

Prepare to hyperventilate, if you haven't already:

Heading into Election Day, likely voters divide 50 percent for President Obama and 47 percent for his challenger, Republican Mitt Romney, according to the latest, final weekend release of the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll.

Political pros will tell you that 50% is an important mark in polling, because then however undecideds break, your guy is cool. (That's the technical term.)

But there's more good news, sort of:

Obama has also closed the gap among white voters, inching back above the 40% threshold some analysts see as critical to his reelection. In the final days, white voters divide 56% for Romney, 41% for Obama. More than three-quarters of non-whites, 76%, back Obama, 20% side with Romney.

Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree)

New ABC/Washington Post poll finds Democrats more enthusiastic about voting than GOP voters by 8 points

November 5, 2012

Now we're not saying that Mitt Romney is really pitching hard for the aging baby boomer vote but...

Jonathan Freedland (@j_freedland)

Romney, purporting to marvel at crowd size, said he "wondered if maybe the Beatles we're playing" nearby. #downwiththekids

November 5, 2012

But the Obama campaign will see your Beatles reference and raise you ... Neil Diamond doing GOTV calls!

Neil Diamond (@NeilDiamond)

Working the phones for Obama...If I call you, don't hang up. It's really me and I need you. #OFACulver twitter.com/NeilDiamond/st…

November 5, 2012

Yeah, this Neil Diamond...

Via the press pool traveling with Barack Obama, Jen Psaki – the president’s press spokeswoman – has been briefing journalists travelling with Obama that, unlike Romney, he had no plans to leave his home state of Illinois on Tuesday.

The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill reads the runes:

In what could be interpreted as a sign of confidence or complacency, he is planning to spend part of the day playing basketball, as he has on others days when he has been involved in an election.

Psaki was dismissive of Romney going to Pennsylvania, seeing it as well beyond Republican reach, summing up his move as “a head fake”. On early voting, she said that Obama was up 15 points in Wisconsin, 24 points in Ohio and 23 points in Iowa.

Voting complaints in Florida and Ohio were being monitored, she said. "The facts on this front are clear," she said, adding the Florida government tried to curtail early voting by six days and Ohio by three.

The White House spokesman Jay Carney said: "We ought to be doing eveything we can to make it easier for people to vote not harder."

Sam Stein (@samsteinhp)

Someone will have to explain, at some point in time, why Romney waited until two days before the election to play in PA

November 5, 2012

So who was the biggest corporate donor to super pacs in the 2012 election cycle? Top of the tree with a $5m in total donations is that household name, Specialty Group Incorporated, of Knoxville, Tennessee.

What do mean, you've never heard of Specialty Group Incorporated, of Knoxville, Tennessee? Have you been living on the Planet Mars for the last ... month? Because that's how old Specialty Group Incorporated is.

Via Liz Bartolomeo of the Sunlight Foundation:

Specialty was formed only a month ago. Its “principal office” is a private home in Knoxville. It has no website. And the only name associated with it is that of its registered agent, William S Rose Jr, a lawyer whose phone number, listed in a legal directory, is disconnected.

Rose released a press release Monday saying the company was created to "buy, sell, develop and invest in a variety of real estate ventures and investments."

In the six-page statement, Rose said he was a "disappointed, yet staunchly patriotic, baby boomer" with concerns about the administration's handling of the terrorist attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, as well as the Department of Justice's botched "Operation Fast and Furious" gunwalking program.

But don't worry: there are plenty of actual household names who have been donating to Republican-allied super pacs:

In mid-October, oil and gas giant Chevron donated $2.5 million to a super PAC close to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, called the Congressional Leadership Fund, which has aired a bevy of ads attacking Democratic House candidates.

Summary

Richard Adams is getting into the blogging seat here. Since our summary around lunch time:

President Obama leads Governor Mitt Romney 48-46 nationally, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll. The president showed a 49-46 lead in a Gallup poll of registered voters.

The Romney campaign announced the candidate would continue to campaign on Election Day in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Cleveland, Ohio.

The rapper Jay-Z gave the world "99 problems but Mitt ain't one" at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, where the president is just now taking the stage.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, a vocally proud Bruce Springsteen fanatic whose love is not reciprocated by the rocker, appears to have seen some immediate quid pro quo for his praise of President Obama last week.

The rocker finally took a call from the governor:

Reid Epstein (@reidepstein)

Jay Carney confirms that Obama put Bruce Springsteen on the phone w/@govchristie aboard Air Force One today. #matchmaker

November 5, 2012

Jay-Z is warming up the Obama crowd in Columbus, Ohio. Live stream here, while it lasts.

"I got 99 problems but Mitt ain't one." Yup, that's happening.

Jay-Z campaigns for Barack Obama in Columbus, Ohio.
Jay-Z campaigns for Barack Obama in Columbus, Ohio. Photograph: YouTube

Confronting herself with the prospect of a Romney presidency, Ana Marie Cox taps some inner zen:

I know both whom I want to win, and whom I want to lose: this isn't a "lesser of two evils" election for me. Whatever flaws scar Obama's first administration (drones, cough, drones; watered-down Wall Street reform, cough), I find them proactively superior to Romney's. And no matter who wins, an invasion of zombie hordes is a long-shot outcome. (As Joss Whedon advises, you might collect canned goods and practice parkour, anyway; Romney's ahead of us on that score.)

Over time, we in the US tend to do OK. We've made serious mistakes as a country, sometimes dodging apocalypse or genocide by a combination of luck and sheer bloodymindedness. We've let our government take action in gruesome ways – internment camps, Vietnam, Iraq. And, as citizens, we've stood by while injustices rolled over other people's lives (this individualized list is too painful and too long to articulate).

But we tend to learn from our mistakes; we tend to correct them, as best we can. Our always re-enforced self-interest and offhand sense of fairness produces a kind of lazy arc toward justice. Frustration and outrage bring wars to an end ("We're still in Iraq? Why?"). Protest and disenchantment with pursuing a failing cause allow rights to expand ("I'm not going to get up off the couch to keep gays from marrying").

Well worth a full read here.

The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill weighs in on the Romney camp's unusual decision to continue campaigning on election day:

The candidates normally do not campaign on election day. It is a time for volunteers ferrying and cajoling voters to the polling stations. So Romney is breaking the convention by continuing to campaign Tuesday in Pennsylvania and Ohio. His campaign staff has just announced that Paul Ryan too is to keep on going in Janesville, Wisconsin, his home state. No big hardship for him. Just in case he fails to make it as vice-president, he kept his name on the ballot for re-election to the House and a little campaign time in the state can't help.

The move by Romney is not unprecedented. The Hill notes that Obama visited Indiana in 2008 on Election Day, and President George W. Bush visited Ohio in 2004. Romney however appears to be laying plans for unprecedented Election Day activity, including the first two-state swing.

We're not willing to declare it a problem until the Romney camp announces plans to continue campaigning on Wednesday. Then we'll have a problem.

Obama leads nationally 48-46, Reuters-Ipsos finds

A daily tracking poll just released by Reuters/Ipsos finds President Obama ahead of Governor Romney 48-46 nationally:

Of 4,725 likely voters polled nationally, 48 percent said they supported Democrat Obama and 46 percent said they backed Romney, a former Massachusetts governor, according to the poll.

The results fall within the poll's credibility interval, a tool used to account for statistical variation in Internet-based polls. In this case, the credibility interval for likely voters was plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

The always thoughtful Maria Bustillos writes up the truth about voting machine conspiracies over at The Awl. She talks to people who know the machines and the industry. They assuage her concerns that the presidency is about to be stolen:

If you have come down with Election Fever, as I have, talking with extremely qualified people who spend their whole workday on these matters is the best way to cause your bulging skull to return to its ordinary proportions.

Latest polls from the battleground states

Via Taegan Goddard's Political Wire:

Colorado: Obama 52%, Romney 46% (Public Policy Polling)

Florida: Romney 52%, Obama 47% (InsiderAdvantage)

Florida: Obama 50%, Romney 49% (Public Policy Polling)

Florida: Romney 50%, Obama 48% (Pulse Opinion Research)

Florida: Obama 49%, Romney 45% (UNF)

Iowa: Romney 49%, Obama 48% (American Research Group)

New Hampshire: Obama 51%, Romney 48% (WMUR)

New Hampshire: Obama 49%, Romney 49% (American Research Group)

New Hampshire: Obama 50%, Romney 46% (New England College)

North Carolina: Obama 49%, Romney 49% (Public Policy Polling)

Ohio: Obama 48%, Romney 46% (Pulse Opinion Research)

Ohio: Obama 50%, Romney 49% (University of Cincinnati)

Ohio: Obama 49%, Romney 49% (Rasmussen)

Ohio: Obama 49%, Romney 44% (SurveyUSA)

Pennsylvania: Obama 49%, Romney 46% (Pulse Opinion Research)

Pennsylvania: Obama 51%, Romney 47% (Angus Reid)

Virginia: Obama 48%, Romney 47% (NBC/WSJ/Marist)

Virginia: Obama 49%, Romney 48% (Pulse Opinion Research)

Virginia: Romney 50%, Obama 48% (Rasmussen)

Wisconsin: Obama 49%, Romney 48% (Pulse Opinion Research)

The Guardian's Adam Gabbatt is in New Hampshire, gearing up for the big Romney finale tonight in Manchester. Romney is due on stage at the Verizon Wireless arena, in the city's downtown area, at 9.30pm ET.

Here's Adam:

It was all quiet at the arena when I stopped by at 1.30pm, just three few staffers milling about warning that the building, which is decorated with a massive 'R', was about to be closed until tonight. The road outside the 11,000 capacity arena was more interesting.

A flat bed truck is parked outside with a rather beautiful Romney-Ryan decorated bulldozer. (Unstated) message: "nothing can stand in their way!" On the same flat bed trailer is a big Perspex box filled with work boots and other manly apparel. (Stated) message: "we build it!"

The Obama campaign staged a pre-emptive press conference next to the arena at 2 pm, where Sen John Kerry, resplendent in a tan anorak, was the main draw.

Recalling his role in Obama's debate preparation, Kerry noted that he knew he was getting good at impersonating Mitt Romney "when I came home and my dog growled at me".

There were plenty of digs too. Kerry, standing in front of an Obama campaign bus and flanked by around 30 cold-braving supporters, accused Romney of "flim-flam artistry" over his plans for Medicare and Medicaid before stressing the need for a president who stands for the truth.

"I got news for you folks," Kerry continued. "We in Massachusetts know that's not a man who after the age of 45 or 50 changed his position on every single fundamental belief of American politics. On guns, on marriage, on gays, on religion, on abortion, on the war, on healthcare."

Adam Gabbatt

GOP views on rape and abortion hamper Senate designs

Once upon a time the Republicans were supposed to nab the Senate this election. Now Democrats are increasingly confident of retaining control of the Senate, with polls suggesting the Republicans will be punished for their conservative views on rape and abortion.

The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill reports:

The Republicans had been expecting to overturn the Democrats' slim 53-47 majority, adding the Senate to the already Republican-controlled House, providing them with a powerful base to challenge Barack Obama or support a Mitt Romney presidency.

But these hopes have receded. One of the biggest blows is in Indiana, a state the Republicans have held since 1976. The latest poll shows the Republican Richard Mourdock trailing 11 points behind Democrat Joe Donnelly. The Tea Party-backed Mourdock is suffering from his comment that pregnancy from rape was "something God intended".

Read the full story here.

The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill passes on a Springsteen tidbit:

The White House pool reporter grabbed a quick word with Bruce Springsteen, travelling with his wife Patti aboard Air Force One, which the rocker described as "pretty cool".

Springsteen chatted with Obama aboard the plane about the impact of Sandy on New Jersey. "I'm feeling pretty hopeful," about the chances that the Jersey shore will recover, Springsteen said.

Springsteen was joined by rock star Jon Bon Jovi in a telethon benefit for New Jersey over the weekend.

An entertaining bit of inside baseball with former Bill Clinton political adviser Dick Morris and Obama adviser David Axelrod.

BuzzFeed's Ben Smith called Axelrod to get his reaction to Morris' prediction on Fox News of a Romney "landslide." Morris is famous for predictions that turn out to be impressively wrong even for a pundit.

"He's delusional" Axelrod told Smith:

Axelrod added a jab at the scandal that cost Morris his role with Clinton, and included detailed allegations from a prostitute.

"I've had a foot in my mouth plenty of times, but it's always been my own!" Axelrod said.

A woman makes phone calls on behalf of the Republican party at a Romney/Ryan office as volunteers get in their last efforts the day before election day in Wauwatosa November 5, 2012. After a long, bitter and expensive campaign, national polls show U.S. President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are essentially deadlocked ahead of Tuesday's election, although Obama has a slight advantage in the eight or nine battleground states that will decide the winner.Obama has a somewhat easier path to 270 electoral votes than Romney, fueled primarily by a small but steady lead in the vital battleground of Ohio - a crucial piece of any winning scenario for either candidate - and slight leads in Wisconsin, Iowa and Nevada.  REUTERS/Darren Hauck (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS ELECTIONS USA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION) :rel:d:bm:GF2E8B51HYT02
A woman makes phone calls on behalf of the Republican party at a Romney/Ryan office as volunteers get in their last efforts the day before election day in Wauwatosa November 5, 2012.

The New York Times' Ross Douthat, no fan of the president, thinks Obama will win:

So my final, less-than-courageous prediction is that the swing states will, indeed, all be closer than the current averages suggest, and that Obama will only win those states where he’s leading by more than 2 points in the RealClearPolitics poll of polls, and that there will be one surprise where even a bigger lead isn’t safe … but the surprise will be Iowa rather than Wisconsin or Ohio or and Pennsylvania, and Obama will carry the electoral college by 271 to 267. And for the sake of the republic and all our sanity, I’ll give him a popular vote edge as well: Call it 49.7 to 49.2, the same half-percent margin that Gore enjoyed over Bush in 2000.

It turns out that Romney will campaign tomorrow in Ohio. And not only that: he'll campaign in Pennsylvania, too.

Ashley Parker(@AshleyRParker)

Breaking: Per pool report, Romney will head to Cleveland, OH and Pittsburgh, PA tomorrow.

November 5, 2012

Is it a nefarious play to suppress the vote?

daveweigel (@daveweigel)

RT @kerpen: @daveweigel Cleveland and Pittsburgh?? Messing up traffic and logistics in D strongholds.

November 5, 2012

Here's a humorous take:

Rachel Streitfeld (@streitfeldcnn)

Romney audiences have been counting down the days till the election. What will they chant tomorrow in OH and PA? "Today! Today!" ??

November 5, 2012

(h/t: @EmilyABC)

President Obama comes roaring back in the Gallup poll of registered voters, which had Romney leading 49-46 as recently as October 20.

Nate Silver (@fivethirtyeight)

National polls are quite predictable at this point. Everything clustering around Obama +1 +/- the firm's house effect.

November 5, 2012

The Guardian's Chris McGreal looks at gerrymandering in Texas, where Republican mapmakers have drawn giraffe-necked districts around Latino population centers:

After months of legal battles reaching to the supreme court, Texas is holding elections for the US Congress and state legislature in November based on constituency maps a federal court has described as planned by Republican lawmakers with "discriminatory intent".

Democrats and civil rights groups say the intent is to neutralise a rapid expansion of the Latino vote and rig individual elections in favour of Republican candidates, strengthening the party's hand in the US Congress and helping it maintain a hold on the Texas legislature.

"It's a power grab," said Elaine Henderson, the Democratic candidate for Congress in the newly drawn 25th district. "The Republicans are trying to stave off the inevitable. The Hispanic vote is coming, and it's with us, not them."[...]

Democrats have told federal courts that the maps "grossly misrepresent the demographics" of Texas and are part of a wider attempt by conservatives in several states to turn back the gains of the civil rights era.

Read the whole thing here.

Ohio Senator Rob Portman cut a new audio ad for Mitt Romney yesterday. Portman says Romney will work for Ohio:

(h/t: PMS)

That was a pretty big rally in Madison, Wisconsin, this morning for the president.

Barack Obama (@BarackObama)

Forward, Wisconsin! twitter.com/BarackObama/st…

November 5, 2012

This picture doesn't capture the turnout Romney had in Lynchburg, Virginia, this morning, but it was another big one for the Romney campaign too. Photo by Romney's personal aide Garrett Jackson:

Mitt's Body Man (@dgjackson)

Beautiful day in Lynchburg, Virginia. Virginia is ready for Real Change on Day One. #RomneyRyan2012 twitter.com/dgjackson/stat…

November 5, 2012

Slate's Matt Yglesias has a rather entertaining take on why he thinks Governor Romney might be able to provide more short-term economic growth than President Obama. Yglesias' short answer: you can count on Republicans to run budget deficits:

Yet insofar as I have to guess, I think short-term growth will be faster under Romney than Obama for three reasons. First, in the post-1980 era you get bigger budget deficits with Republicans in the White House than with Democrats and that's a good thing in the short-term. Second, the Federal Reserve seems to be biased and delivers looser monetary policy with Republicans in the White House. Third, Republicans are much more likely to promote short-term economic growth at the expense of environmental concerns.

What will you do if your candidate loses?

Ruth Spencer of the Guardian social team has provided a place for readers to spell out their post-apocalyptic game plan should their POTUS pick fall short: Election Mad Libs.

The most popular responses so far, we observe without an ounce of judgment, appear to involve crying and drinking.

Play the game and Ruth will publish her favorite responses tomorrow.

Marriage equality on the ballot

Perhaps it was inevitable: a politically inclined pastor has blamed Hurricane Sandy on support for gay marriage. Specifically New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's support for gay marriage.

The attack took place in Maryland, one of four states with a marriage equality measure on the ballot this election year – the others are Maine, Washington and Minnesota. Marriage equality looks to have a good chance of passing in three of the four states, our poll analyst Harry Enten has written, with Minnesota possibly seeing a defeat.

Yet, polls have Maryland voters approving same-sex marriage by 14 to 20 points. Earlier polls had support for the legislature's actions only leading by single-digits. What happened to provide this sudden jolt in support? Minority, specifically black, voters have grown in their support of same-sex marriage since President Obama announced his backing for gay marriage in May: it seems to be a rare example where the president's bully pulpit has actually worked.

They're talking a lot about gay marriage in Maryland these days. At a Sunday rally against the measure a preacher named Luke Robinson said:

So here was the mayor of New York giving a quarter of a million dollars, coming down to Maryland discussing the matter. While he’s here somebody whispers in the ear, you better go back home and protect your stock because God is sending judgment. The thing came through the area. You have to understand the season and the time. It’s almost the end of hurricane season, but God sent one of the biggest hurricanes ever.

He goes on – click through above for more. Bloomberg has given $250,000 to support the marriage equality law in Maryland.

The Guardian's Ed Pilkington visits with early voters in Columbus, Ohio:

You don't have to think too hard to work out who Chardonae Allison, aged 19, is backing in the presidential election. She has a big photo of Mitt Romney printed across the back of her bomber jacket, and the image has been photo-shopped to give him a very long Pinocchio nose. In case you're still wondering, the word “Liar” has also been stamped across her back. [...]

It's a beautiful sunny and cloudless day in Columbus, and, though cold, voters appeared to be in very good humour. Allison, as you'd expect from her wardrobe, has voted for Barack Obama.

“We want him back in the White House, he needs to be in there, because that other person, Romney, he's trying to take us down,” she said.

When I ask what she means, her friend Biancia Harrison, 23, breaks in. “He's trying to take our medical, our social security away from us.”

“Yeah, and he's telling us who we can marry. Gay marriage, that's a question of free will,” says the third member of this voting crew, Annette Williams, 24.

Summary

A lunchtime summary:

The candidates are running headlong for the finish. Obama will wrap up the day in Iowa, where a caucus victory in January 2008 put him on the path to the White House. Romney will finish in New Hampshire, where he launched his campaign last year. However, the AP reports that Romney may add a few Election Day appearances in Ohio to his schedule.

An estimated 31m people have voted early. Long lines and other complications have been documented in Florida, Ohio and elsewhere.

The final tracking polls show a neck-and-neck race on the national level. That includes Gallup, which had Romney up 51-46 among likely voters on October 28 and now shows the race tied. Savvy observers point out that the popular vote can be very close but produce a big electoral split.

Ohio.

Think you know how the election will come out? Build your own electoral college scenarios using our cool Balloons of Polling interactive, which lets you share your results.

The Balloons of Polling electoral college interactive.
The Balloons of Polling electoral college interactive. Photograph: Guardian

The Guardian's Ed Pilkington checks out a new Obama campaign tool/game designed to entice people into voting early:

The Obama campaign is rolling out new digital tricks in an attempt to inspire Democratic supporters to vote early today.

The advantage of doing that is that it clears the ground operation to focus tomorrow on those slightly wavering voters who haven't yet got to the polling stations and give them a huge election day push.

One of the tools Obama For America is circulating is a gadget that allows you to find out how many of the 31 million people who have already voted early share your first name. The beauty of it from the campaign's point of view is that anyone who likes the game is encouraged to share it with their friends on Facebook, thus spreading the early voting message.

In case you're wondering, 150,395 people called Ed have already voted across America.

Governor Romney is on the stump in Lynchburg, Virginia. The crowd is loud:

"The question in this election comes down to this: Do you want four more years like the last four?"

"NO!"

"Or do you want change?"

"YES!"

Governor Mitt Romney campaigns in Lynchburg, Virginia in a screen grab from CNN.
Governor Mitt Romney campaigns in Lynchburg, Virginia in a screen grab from CNN. Photograph: CNN

Romney "The middle class is being squeezed in this country."

As many as 4.5m people have voted early in Florida – more than half the total number who cast ballots in 2008, according to the United States Elections Project.

What many Floridians on the Democratic side don't understand is why early voting can't continue today. The Guardian's Chris McGreal talks with former Republican Governor Charlie Crist, who has endorsed Obama this year:

Crist chided Florida Governor Rick Scott over his refusal to extend early voting after hours-long lines meant people were forced to wait into the early hours of Sunday morning to cast a ballot when the last day of early voting officially ended at 7pm on Sunday.

"It seems suppressive not to do so," Crist said. "It's unconscionable to me that our governor would not sign an extension. This is a precious, sacred right that we have in our country. We're fortunate we get to choose our leaders. It seems to me that if you value that precious right you'd do everything to encourage people to vote. It seems suppressive not to do so. I just don't understand why someone would not extend it."

McGreal spies a Romney critic with a sense of humor – and theater:

Chris McGreal (@ChrisMcGreal)

twitter.com/ChrisMcGreal/s…

November 5, 2012

The president has wrapped his Madison, Wisconsin, event. The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg reports:

Barack Obama began the last day of his last campaign in front of a sea of bright blue Forward placards held aloft by thousands of supporters at an outdoor rally in front of the Wisconsin state Capitol.

Obama bounded onto the stage after a set with Bruce Springsteen, asking if the crowd was fired up.

There was a big roar from the crowd.

President Barack Obama campaigns in Madison, Wisconsin, Monday, Nov. 5, 2012, in a screen grab from a CBS feed.
President Barack Obama campaigns in Madison, Wisconsin, Monday, Nov. 5, 2012, in a screen grab from a CBS feed. Photograph: CBS

The president struck many of the same themes as he has in recent days, that he is a known quantity, and a solid champion for the middle class.

But Obama also seemed a bit wistful about nearly reaching the end of his life on the campaign trail. "Sometimes you can romanticise a campaign, all those posters and all the good feeling," he said.

But then he whipsawed back on message, with a strong finish.

'We have come too far to push back now," he said. "Now is the time to keep pushing forward."

Suzanne Goldenberg

Historic Latino support for the president

Latino voters appear to be supporting President Obama by an historic margin, with 73% saying they will vote to re-elect the president and only 24% saying they're for Romney. The Plum Line's Greg Sargent looks at why:

The conventional wisdom is that Republican positions on immigration are to blame for the party’s abysmal ratings with Latino voters. With the exception of Texas Governor Rick Perry, every candidate in the GOP primary adopted intensely restrictionist positions on immigration, with Romney placing himself to the right of every other candidate, and embracing “self-deportation” as a policy goal. Republicans nationwide have touted Arizona-style policies as the right direction for the country.

Sargent points out two other reasons: GOP opposition to health care reform, which is generally popular among Latino and Hispanic voters, and the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Read the whole piece here.

The Atlantic's Andrew Cohen is seriously steamed about how hard it is to vote in some Democratic districts in Florida and Ohio. "This is happening not because of a natural disaster or breakdown in machinery," he writes. "It is happening by partisan design":

For example, what happened this weekend in Florida is simply unacceptable. According to a local election official interviewed by CBS News' Phil Hirschkorn, the last "early voter" in line for Saturday's truncated early voting in Palm Beach County finally got to cast a ballot at 2:30 a.m Sunday morning, which means that voter waited in line for more than seven hours. In Miami, another traditional Democratic stronghold, the wait was said to be nearly as long. On Sunday, voters all over the state were begging judges and county officials for more time to vote.

Michael Finnegan (@finneganlatimes)

It's a long, long line to vote early today here in Columbus, Ohio. twitter.com/finneganlatime…

November 4, 2012

"Why Obama is better for Israel than Romney is"– Jeffrey Goldberg's latest analysis in the Atlantic:

I don't doubt that Mitt Romney is devoted to Israel, and I don't doubt that he's committed, in his own mind, to stopping Iran from gaining nuclear weapons. But the question here has to do with the type of devotion he expresses, and with his ability to actually stop Iran. I've argued before that Romney would face some obvious problems in the crisis with Iran: His foreign policy team will be inexperienced; as a Republican, he would face extraordinary opposition from a revitalized anti-war movement and from Democrats in Congress; he himself doesn't want to gain the reputation George W, Bush gained for himself, and so on. Obama, as I have argued in this space, over and over again, is in a better position to carry through his promise to keep Iran from going nuclear, and he has proven he is cold-blooded enough to use force if he thinks American interests are at stake.

Read the whole thing here.

The president takes the mic from Springsteen, and thanks him: "I get to fly around with him on the last day that I will ever campaign, so that's not a bad thing."

Obama name-checks Democratic Senate nominee Tammy Baldwin, "your next senator from the state of Wisconsin." She's facing four-term Republican Governor Tommy Thomspon.

Springsteen had the crowd cracking up and cheering, the Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg reports:

Some great funny lines from Bruce Springsteen: "Sometimes around 2 or 3 at night, I hear the phone ring and I hear a voice singing, 'Let's stay together.'" The crowd loves it, and the silly singalong that follows, shouting out "Forward." 

Then Springsteen gets serious, saying he is thankful for healthcare, Wall street regulation, the auto bailout, the end of the war in Iraq. He has actually made the best case of any of the speakers so far for reelecting Obama – clear, concise and specific.

Bruce Springsteen is playing and talking to the Obama crowd at Madison.

"I've lived long enough to know that the future is not a tide rushing in. It's a long march, day by day," Springsteen says, "And we're in one of those long days right now. I believe President Obama is there with us.... Let's re-elect Barack Obama to carry our standard forward."

Bruce Springsteen at a rally for President Obama in Madison, Wisconsin, Nov. 5, 2012, in a screen grab from a CBS stream.
Bruce Springsteen at a rally for President Obama in Madison, Wisconsin, Nov. 5, 2012, in a screen grab from a CBS stream. Photograph: CBS

Choose your own election

We've had a lot of fun in the past months with the Guardian interactive team's cool tool for keeping up with how the electoral vote is breaking.

Now you can try out various electoral results on the new-and-improved BALLOONS OF POLLING electoral tracker.

The interactive lets you arrange the race the way you think it will come out, then share your results on Facebook or Twitter. The interactive also assigns a different URL to share for each scenario you build.

The BALLOONS of POLLING by the Guardian interactive team.
The BALLOONS of POLLING by the Guardian interactive team. Photograph: The Guardian

Our favorite feature: crossing 270 for either candidate puts a smile on his face and a frown on his opponent's.

The United States that Matter, from Now This News:

(h/t: @BuzzFeedBen)

More early voting lines today. In Florida you can't actually cast a ballot today – most early voting in the state ended Saturday – but you can pick up an absentee ballot. For that there are, of course, lines:

Kim Segal CNN Miami (@CNNkimsegal)

FL LINES: Hundreds in line at Miami Dade Elex office dropping off & picking up absentee ballots twitter.com/CNNkimsegal/st…

November 5, 2012

In Ohio, they're casting votes today:

Mike Hayes (@michaelhayes)

If I was voting early today in Columbus, OH, I'd definitely get some Rich's Grilled Pizza :) (GETTY) twitter.com/michaelhayes/s…

November 5, 2012

What's Romney's path to victory?

We've seen a few of these analysis pieces over the weekend. Some of them are longer than others. Some of them go on for a thousand words before they get to the point: Romney needs Ohio.

Either that or he loses Ohio but somehow wins the other 7 tossup states including Iowa (+3 Obama in the latest Real Clear Politics poll of polls), Nevada (+2.8 Obama) and Iowa (+2 Obama).

The New Yorker's John Cassidy has the temerity to ask, "How much did Hurricane Sandy help Obama?":

It surely can’t be a coincidence that, in the past few days, Obama’s approval rating has been ticking up, and that, in most polls it is now at or over fifty per cent. Even the Rasmussen tracking poll, which is generally considered to lean to the Republicans, has shown a significant uptick in the President’s numbers. On Sunday, October 28th, Rasmussen had Obama’s approval rating at 47 per cent. By yesterday, that figure had risen to 51 per cent. At the same time, Romney’s lead in the Rasmussen poll has disappeared. A week ago, it had him ahead by two points: 49 to 47. On Sunday, it had the race tied at 49-49.

Read the full piece here.

Today has been billed as the last day of the 2012 campaign – after all, the election is tomorrow – but is it really the last day?

The AP has a rather alarming report that Governor Romney is considering adding a final day of campaigning tomorrow in Ohio:

GOP officials familiar with the plan say the Republican nominee may make a final visit Tuesday to the critical battleground state, where 18 electoral votes are up for grabs.

Such a visit would be a last-ditch attempt to win a state that is critical to Romney's presidential hopes.

An electronic voter identification computer waits to be sent out to a local precinct in Charlotte, North Carolina November 5, 2012. After a long, bitter and expensive campaign, national polls show President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are essentially deadlocked ahead of Tuesday's election. REUTERS/Chris Keane (UNITED STATES - Tags: POLITICS ELECTIONS USA PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION) :rel:d:bm:GF2E8B516Y001
An electronic voter identification computer waits to be sent out to a local precinct in Charlotte, North Carolina November 5, 2012.

The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg speaks with former Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold as they wait for the Obama rally to begin in Madison:

People are pouring onto MLK boulevard for Obama's first rally on the last day of the campaign. A few of them are carrying small signs protesting the Republican governor, Scott Walker. Leading Wisconsin Democrats are also beginning to arrive.

I had a chance to talk to Russ Feingold, the former Democratic senator. Feingold was a lone voice against the Patriot Act and was one of the first big casualties of the 2010 Tea Party uprising. He was very upbeat.

"We've obviously taken nothing for granted," he said, noting Obama's five campaign visits to the state.

He said Romney had miscalculated in thinking that Wisconsin native Paul Ryan could help him take the state.

"The Romney camp is finding out that putting Paul Ryan on the ticket was a mistake," Feingold said. "He has spent an inordinate amount of time in the state and it's still going in the Democratic column."

Early voting: an estimated 30 million have already cast their ballots

About 30 million early votes have already been cast in this election (the total number of votes counted in the 2008 presidential election was 133m).

The United States Elections Project is keeping a running tally of how much early voting is happening, and where it's happening.

As many as 30% of voters in Ohio have already cast their ballots. The latest early voting estimate for the state – an estimate that comes with a warning about a discrepancy in reporting between the state secretary and county officials – stood at 1,665,089 votes cast as of yesterday.

In Wisconsin, which only has in-person early voting, 256,277 votes had been cast – or about 8.6% of the total number cast in 2008.

In Nevada, where you can early vote by mail or in person, nearly 702,000 have already voted; that's 72.4% of total voting numbers in 2008. According to state figures, 43.9% of Nevadans who voted early were Democrats and 37% were Republicans, with the rest falling under "other."

(h/t: @jamiedupree)

The Miami Herald describes a chaotic early voting scene yesterday in Doral, Florida (west Miami). The paper lays the blame for all-day waits and general disorder at the door of the Republican mayor:

Call it the debacle in Doral.

Elections officials, overwhelmed with voters, locked the doors to their Doral headquarters and temporarily shut down the operation, angering nearly 200 voters standing in line outside — only to resume the proceedings an hour later.

On the surface, officials blamed technical equipment and a lack of staff for the shutdown. But behind the scenes, there was another issue: Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez.

The Republican had never signed off on the additional in-person absentee voting hours in the first place.

The Guardian's Suzanne Goldenberg is in Madison, Wisconsin, for this morning's Obama rally. You can follow her on Twitter for live updates. The president is scheduled to take the stage in about an hour-and-a-half.

Suzanne Goldenberg (@suzyji)

Madison.Crowd gets ready for Obama's closing rally - and Bruce Springsteen twitpic.com/bal81d

November 5, 2012

A final day of campaigning

All times local:

Mitt Romney

9 a.m.: rally at Orlando Sanford Airport, Florida

12.35 pm: rally, Lynchburg, Virginia

6.25 pm: rally at Landmark Aviation, Columbus, Ohio

10.00 pm: rally with Kid Rock, Manchester, N.H.

Paul Ryan

9.25 am: rally, Reno, Nevada

1.35 pm: rally, Johnstown, Colorado

5.30 pm: rally, Des Moines, Iowa

9.15 pm: rally, Vienna, Ohio

10.15 pm: rally, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Barack Obama

10.45 am: rally, Madison, Wisconsin

4.10 pm: rally, Columbus, Ohio

9.50 pm: rally, Des Moines, Iowa

Joe Biden

12.15 pm: rally, Sterling, Virginia

7 pm: rally, Richmond, Virginia

Libertarian Party nominee Gary Johnson

9 pm: third-party presidential debate, Washington, DC

(h/t: Politico)

Romney: 'Tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow'

 Romney is speaking at Avion Jet Center in Sanford, Florida.

"These last two months of the campaign, you've noted that we've become a movement, gathered strength. And not just in the size of the crowds.

"I won't just represent one party, I'll represent one nation."

The crowd's in full holler mode this Monday morning. Romney's line about voting not for revenge but for love of country brings out an exuberant "USA! USA! USA!"

Romney has a new kicker line: 'Tomorrow we begin a new tomorrow."

Mitt Romney campaigns in Sanford, Florida, Monday, Nov. 5, 2012, in a screen grab from CNN.
Mitt Romney campaigns in Sanford, Florida, Monday, Nov. 5, 2012, in a screen grab from CNN. Photograph: CNN

After Romney's done speaking the sound system comes to life with country star Rodney Atkins' work of nostalgic patriotism, "It's America." The refrain: "It's a high school prom, it's a Springsteen song, it's a ride in a Chevrolet." This is happening as Bruce Springsteen warms up a crowd at an Obama rally in Wisconson.

One day more

Good morning and welcome to our election-eve live blog politics coverage. The candidates continue their mad dash through battleground states today in an attempt to make a final impression. Here's a summary of where things stand:

President Obama rallies with Bruce Springsteen this morning in Madison, Wisconsin, before heading to Columbus, Ohio, for his 100th rally of the campaign and then on to Iowa. 

Governor Romney begins in Florida and then heads to two Virginia stops, a stop in Ohio and a grand finale in Manchester, New Hampshire. We've entered the pre-election margin of madness where every stop a candidates makes or does not make is indicative of a secret dynamic of the race only they know.

Erick Erickson (@EWErickson)

Why is Romney in Florida today?Is it not locked down?

November 5, 2012

Early voting hit a speed bump in Florida on Sunday when a polling place that Democrats had sued to keep open for extended hours had to be evacuated because of a bomb threat. The culprit: a cooler. 

Early voting was likewise slowed in Ohio, where long lines developed outside polling stations. The Miami-Herald puts voter anger on its front page this morning.

Governor Romney held a big rally in Morrisville, Pennsylvania, last night. 

The president finished the day with a large rally of his own in Aurora, Colorado. 

An uncomfortable scene played out at Romney's big Pennsylvania rally last night when voters who had waited outside for hours grew too cold and wanted to leave, but were stopped by security personnel. Others left the event through a press area.

Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker)

With Romney still speaking, scores of people exiting thru press area. Too cold, they say, and wait too long. instagr.am/p/RoI5fCITiM/

November 5, 2012

Communications specialist Rick Gorka tweets a picture from the rally:

Rick Gorka (@Rick_Gorka)

Eric Draper photo of the day @mittromney and @anndromney. The next President and First Lady! @anndromney #tcot twitter.com/Rick_Gorka/sta…

November 5, 2012

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, a major backer of the Romney campaign, has an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal explaining why he left the Democratic party. He accuses the party of abandoning Israel and of not doing enough charitable giving.