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US Presidential polls: Barack Obama, Mitt Romney camps eye magical '270' figure
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Hours ahead of the millions of Americans were to cast their vote in the today's elections, both the Romney and Obama campaigns, in their speeches and conference calls with reporters, claimed that enthusiasm was on their side.
The opinion polls, however, suggested a close contest.
The latest Washington Post-ABC tracking poll released yesterday gave Obama (50 per cent) a three point lead over Romney (47 per cent), which is still within the margin of statistical error.
"The poll also finds that Obama remains the favorite, with 55 per cent of voters saying that he will win in Tuesday's election. By contrast, 35 per cent believe Romney will win while 10 per cent register no opinion," the daily said.
The polls are too close to call, the CNN said, so did other major news networks.
The much sought after RealClearPolitics gave Obama an edge of 0.7 percentage point lead over Romney.
While it has been a tie in the CNN poll, two other polls Rasmussen Reports and Gallup have one point edge to Romney over Obama.
Another survey by Mommouth/ SurveyUSA/Braun it is a tie between the two presidential candidates.
But the two campaigns based on their own feedback from the ground claimed that they were headed for a win.
Karl Rove, the Republican strategist claimed that Romney would get 285 Electoral College votes (more than the 270 required to win the elections).
The Sabato's Crystal Ball yesterday predicted that Obama would receive 290 Electoral College votes, while Romney will be lagging behind with 248 votes.
The Washington Examiner's senior political analyst Michael Barone said that Romney would get 315 votes as compared to Obama's 223.
Jen Psaki, the Obama Campaign spokesperson, said that the campaign is moving in the right direction, even though it is very close, and termed Romney's claim to victory nothing less than fantasy.
"It's worth reminding you we are tied or leading in every single swing state. We are ahead in early vote in almost every single swing state. We feel great about where our ground game is now. We feel great about where we're closing this race," she said.
"We know there's a lot of fantasy talk happening from the Romney team about the number of electoral votes that they think they're going to achieve. We're not going to get into that kind of predictions. But the only thing that matters is that more people vote for President Obama than vote for Mitt Romney. We are confident of that," Psaki told reporters travelling abroad Air Force One.
