Polling stations opened across the eastern United States and parts of the Midwest as Election Day dawned. At least 120 million people were expected to render judgment on whether to give Obama a second term or replace him with Romney. Their decision will set the country’s course for four years on spending, taxes, healthcare and [...]

With the race in a dead heat nationally, both candidates touched down briefly in Dubuque, a Mississippi River city of 58,000 people, as they sprinted across the country in a bid to secure any possible advantage before Election Day. In an airport rally early in the afternoon, Romney urged supporters to try to sway friends [...]

Roughly 22 percent of the U.S. population lives in the nine politically divided states that are likely to determine the outcome of Tuesday’s election – and that have been the focus of the candidates’ campaign stops and advertising. That has left four-fifths of Americans effectively on the sidelines, the highest proportion in more than century. [...]

With six days until the election and polls nearly tied in most critical battlegrounds, the relative cease-fire between President Obama and Mitt Romney in the days after a hurricane ravaged the East Coast remained intact Wednesday — but their campaigns were a different story. As Obama toured the damage in New Jersey with Gov. Chris [...]

It’s a new President Obama — bolstered by positive reviews of his response to Hurricane Sandy — who returns to the campaign trail Thursday. Having suspended campaigning on Monday as the storm approached the East Coast, Obama holds rallies Thursday in Green Bay, Wis.; Las Vegas; and Denver. As Obama heads west, nearly eight in [...]

With less than a week to go until Election Day, President Obama continues the delicate balancing act of running for re-election while helping manage the federal response to a catastrophic storm that has ravaged a huge swath of the East Coast. The White House announced Tuesday that the president was canceling previously scheduled plans to [...]

The hurricane that is blowing through the East Coast has threatened to create the kind of unpredictable havoc in this election that presidential candidates always fear. With all the scripted television spots and carefully choreographed live appearances, Hurricane Sandy is generating fear that might push the campaign in directions that nobody has expected. Mitt Romney [...]

The racial gap in the presidential campaign is growing wider, according to the polls, and this could be a sign that, unfortunately, national unity remains a long way off and racial tensions may still be simmering below the surface of American life. Republican challenger Mitt Romney has a huge lead over President Obama among white [...]

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been front and center in coping with superstorm Sandy, which ripped into the New York-New Jersey area Monday night. On Tuesday, following the historic damage delivered to his beloved state, Christie took to the morning television shows, showering praise on the leadership role President Barack Obama and his Federal [...]

President Obama has cut back more of his campaign schedule, planning to return from Florida to the White House early Monday afternoon to monitor Hurricane Sandy. Obama flew to Orlando on Sunday evening. The president had planned to appear Monday with former President Bill Clinton at three rallies in Orlando, Fla.; Youngstown, Ohio; and northern [...]