US presidential campaign comes to an end
Neither candidate will tell the American people the truth: the next administration, whether headed by a Democrat or a Republican, will launch attacks on the living standards, social benefits and democratic rights of the American people on a scale never before seen. This will be combined with stepped-up military aggression overseas, from the Middle East to the Pacific.
The last weekend of the 2012 US presidential election campaign was marked by rallies for both Democratic President Barack Obama and his Republican challenger Mitt Romney in a handful of closely contested states, while the deluge of television commercials continues right up to the opening of the polls on Tuesday.
The itineraries of the two candidates were limited to the so-called battleground states, with Obama traveling on the weekend from Ohio to Iowa, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida, Colorado and back to Ohio. On Monday he visits Colorado and Wisconsin before a final campaign rally in Iowa.
Romney scrapped plans to visit Nevada, where Obama has pulled ahead, in favor of visits to New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado, Iowa again, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
The electoral map has remained virtually unchanged since the summer, with Obama leading in 18 states and the District of Columbia, accounting for 237 electoral votes, while Romney leads in 23 states with 191 electoral votes. A majority in the Electoral College is 270 electoral votes. Of the nine remaining states, with 110 electoral votes, Obama is leading in pre-election polls in eight, all but North Carolina, but in some cases only by a narrow margin.