WASHINGTON, 2 November 2004 — The final day of campaigning before today’s presidential election day had both candidates sprinting across “swing” states in hopes of snaring voters before they head to the polls.
Opinion polls say the race is too close to call. Forecasts will begin first thing this morning, and continue late into the night, as the US is divided into six time zones.
President George Bush made his last stop before election day in Florida — the “swing” state with the largest electoral prize of 27 votes — while Sen. John Kerry stormed through crucial “tossup” states, making what his campaign called “closing arguments” to the American people.
Both men unleashed the largest and best-organized voter-mobilization drives in the history of presidential politics, using hundreds of thousands of volunteers and paid organizers to try to win the majority vote in a handful of swing states today that will decide the future of America.
Foreign policy — usually an afterthought in a US election — will be foremost in many voters’ minds today as they decide who can best lead the country in a post-Sept. 11 world. This is the first time in more than a generation that foreign policy and terrorism have been uppermost on the list of voter concerns during a presidential election.
Following the release of a videotaped message by Osama Bin Laden on Friday afternoon, officials in both campaigns said they detected no significant trend in either direction. But that didn’t stop them from making the most of it.
Kerry’s advisers blamed Bush for letting Bin Laden escape, but Kerry distanced himself from such remarks, saying his surrogates should not make political use of the Al-Qaeda leader’s latest videotape.
And Bush campaigners accused the Kerry team of playing politics with the critically important issue of national security.
Meanwhile, more than 60 election observers — sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) — took their places in six key states, including Florida and Ohio, saying they hope their presence will serve as a “preventative to the shenanigans” during voting today.
As for congressional races, also to be determined at the polls today, Republicans are expected to hold on to their House majority, but the Senate is viewed as a nail-biter, with nine races in play that could upset the Republican’s current control of the Senate.
With both sides admitting the race is too close to call, predictions are that tomorrow morning, the day after elections, will be a day of endless talk of how things went wrong with, perhaps, a vacuum of real information. Those interested in following elections online can log onto: www.rasmussenreports.com, www.pollingreport.com, and www.zogby.com.
