POLLS presented contradictory results across the United States last night, with evidence that John McCain is closing with Barack Obama ahead of tomorrow's presidential election.
Mr Obama's ten-percentage-point national lead has been halved, and Mr McCain has crept ahead in some swing states.
On paper, the Democratic candidate is still heading for a landslide victory, with leads in half a dozen key states – but those leads are narrowing fast and some others have disappeared.
In Ohio, perhaps the most analysed swing state of all, Mr McCain has a two-point lead, according to one poll, while another gives the state to Mr Obama by six points.
And Missouri, which has voted with the winning candidate in every election bar one for 100 years, is now tied.
The Republican is publicly confident he can punch through the remaining barrier today when he begins a series of seven speeches in seven key states.
Last night, Mr McCain told a rally in Pennsylvania: "I know momentum when I see it. I can sense the enthusiasm and the momentum in these last 48 hours. We're going to win this race, my friends."
Pat Buchanan, who has been an adviser to three Republican presidents, said: "He (McCain] can do it, but it is a long, long, long shot."
Mr Obama's task is to win enough states to gather at least 18 more electoral college votes than the Democrats achieved in 2004 – thus reaching or passing the 270 needed to claim the White House. On paper he will get there comfortably, with former Republican states Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina and Virginia all favouring him.
But only Iowa and New Mexico seem solidly in his camp, and if the rest slide back to supporting Mr McCain, it would leave Mr Obama off target by six electoral college votes.
Mr McCain, meanwhile, is on the offensive in the Democratic state of Pennsylvania, with polls showing Mr Obama's lead there has shrunk to between three and seven points. If the 21 electoral college votes of this state go to the Republican, Mr Obama's task will become harder still.
Both campaigns unleashed a final wave of negative advertisements at the weekend.
Republicans have begun to call millions of Democrat voters, playing a recording of a speech Hillary Clinton gave during her primary battle with Mr Obama.
"Senator McCain will bring a lifetime of experience to the campaign," said Mrs Clinton, in comments made as she fought for the Democratic nomination. Republicans hope Mrs Clinton's words will resonate with the one-third of her blue-collar supporters, particularly in Pennsylvania, who told pollsters last summer that, after she lost the primary election to Mr Obama, they planned to switch parties and vote for Mr McCain.
Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is flooding the airwaves with an advertisement pounding on its theme that Mr McCain promises to continue the policies of the discredited Bush administration.
"If you want to know the real John McCain," it says, "look behind you."
But with so much conflicting information, pundits are being cautious.
John Fund, of the Wall Street Journal, said: "The biggest surprise will be how close it will be. He (Obama] has been characterised as a front-runner for so long that he is quasi-incumbent; it has become a referendum on Barack Obama."
Mr Obama added a new twist to his campaign yesterday, appearing in Ohio alongside singer Bruce Springsteen, a man who is a legend among the blue-collar white Democrats.
The Illinois senator fought back against claims by his rival that he plans to raise taxes. "All I'm talking about is going back to the tax rates under Bill Clinton," he said. "A tax cut for 95 per cent of the population, that may be the first bill I introduce."
And in a surprise comment, he declared that his rival might yet be employed in a future Obama administration.
"I would certainly consider John McCain for any position where I thought he would be the best for the country," he said.
A CNN poll of polls released yesterday suggests Mr Obama is heading for a landslide because he is up six points in Nevada, two in North Carolina and four in Ohio. But the undecided voters in those polls are, respectively, 8 per cent, 4 per cent and 6 per cent – enough to give Mr McCain all three states if they break his way on Tuesday.
How much racism will affect the attitudes of undecided white voters is the great unknown of this campaign, as is whether such racial sentiment will be balanced by what is likely to be a record turnout for Mr Obama by black voters.
Meanwhile, more than a dozen states are braced for chaos as untested voting machines are subjected to unprecedented strain in what is expected to be a record turnout tomorrow.
Similar chaos in Florida in 2000 saw the election result suspended until 12 December, when, after multiple recounts, the US Supreme Court declared that George Bush had won by fewer than 500 votes.
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Omaba's hometown gets ready for party of a lifetime•
C'est la vie as prank call embarrasses PalinDash for White House gloryWITH two days to go in the race for the White House, John McCain set out yesterday on a dizzying campaign charge through three states where victory could yet tip the presidential contest in his favour.
As Democrat Barack Obama focused on Ohio, including an appearance in Cleveland with the singer Bruce Springsteen, Mr McCain was dashing from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire and then Florida.
The 72-year-old former navy fighter pilot, who was held prisoner and tortured by the North Vietnamese, has made up ground in Democratic-leaning Pennsylvania with his appeal to white working-class voters, many of whom supported Mr Obama's primary rival, Hillary Clinton.
"The most important state to watch now is Pennsylvania. We're doing great there," Rick Davis, Mr McCain's campaign manager, said.
The Obama campaign, raising the spectre of George Bush's administration, released a new 30-second television spot highlighting unpopular vice-president Dick Cheney's endorsement of Mr McCain and his running mate, Sarah Palin. An announcer says Mr McCain earned Mr Cheney's support by voting with the White House 90 per cent of the time. "That's not the change we need," the announcer says.
Mr McCain's campaign team responded by noting the issues on which Mr McCain had disagreed with Mr Bush. "It was John McCain who fought vice-president Cheney on Big Oil's energy bill, the administration's wasteful spending and argued for a different, successful course in Iraq, not Barack Obama," a spokesman said.
Mr McCain appeared on this weekend's Saturday Night Live, a satirical television show, to poke fun at his presidential campaign's financial shortcomings and his reputation as a political maverick.
He also made a cameo appearance at the beginning of the show, with Tina Fey reprising her memorable impersonation of Ms Palin.
