McCain, Obama sweep through swing states as long election season draws to a close today

Aiming for a last-minute upset, Republican John McCain embarked on a grueling odyssey through seven swing states Monday while Democrat Barack Obama was headed toward three longtime GOP bastions that have become Democratic-leaning battlegrounds in the historic presidential contest.

“My friends, it’s official – there’s just one day left until we take America in a new direction,” McCain said at a raucous, heavily Hispanic rally in Miami just after midnight.
The candidates’ disparate schedules on the last day of the long presidential contest reflected the overall state of the race going into its final hours.

Obama, cruising comfortably ahead in national and many battleground state polls, was starting his day with a late morning rally in Jacksonville, before heading to events in Virginia and North Carolina.

McCain, meanwhile, was struggling to hang onto those and other states that voted for President Bush in 2004 in hopes of preserving a slim path to victory Tuesday night.