• Obama, Romney teams project confidence amid tight poll numbers

    By Michael O'Brien, NBC News

     

    Surrogates for President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney projected outward confidence on Sunday in each candidate's ability to win on Election Day.

    As the final NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll showed a close race nationally between the two candidates, their top supporters squabbled over who held the upper hand in critical battleground states.

    "I'm very confident that, two days out from Election Day, the president's going to be re-elected on Tuesday night," said David Plouffe, a White House adviser who managed the president's 2008 campaign, on "Meet the Press."

    There are seven states, worth 89 electoral votes, considered true "toss-up" states on NBC News' battleground map: Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, Florida and New Hampshire. Other competitive states include Nevada, which has leaned slightly for Obama in recent polls, and North Carolina, which has tended toward Romney in many recent polls.

    "All these states right now, we think the president's in a good position to win," Plouffe said.

    Both Obama and Romney spent Saturday barnstorming these battleground states in hope of shoring up their base and shaking loose prized undecided voters in the final hours of the campaign. But their professed confidence belied a much more competitive battle for the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency, especially as an uncertain finale loomed over the 2012 campaign.

    The Romney campaign said its Sunday schedule — which took the former Massachusetts governor to Pennsylvania and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan to Minnesota — both states which Republicans have only contested as of late — was a sign of surging national momentum. But Democrats castigated those trips as a sign of desperation, as Romney scrambled for new pathways to 270.

    One of the most hotly contested battleground states includes Virginia, which Obama has put into play in 2008 and again in 2012. It also has one of the earliest poll closing times in the nation on Tuesday, and could offer political observers an early indicator of the trend lines in the election.

    "We're going to win this state, and I think we're going to win it a lot bigger than people are predicting," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican who represents a Richmond-area district.

    He added: "I see here on the ground, there is a lot of enthusiasm for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan."

    But political bravado is a well-worn tradition for the closing days of the elections, and Plouffe was quick to seize upon Romney's plans to spend some of his final campaign stops in Virginia and Florida, two states he might not be able to afford losing come Tuesday night.

    "We think Gov. Romney's playing defense," the White House aide said of Virginia and Florida. "I'd rather be the president today than Gov. Romney in terms of those two states."

    Plouffe also characterized the Obama campaign's position in Iowa and Ohio — two footholds of the president's Midwestern "firewall" — as "commanding," though he cautioned the campaign must execute its get-out-the-vote efforts on Tuesday if it is to secure those states.

    Follow the final weekend of the campaign with NBC Politics:

  • Romney, Ryan vow not to cut military budget

    Mary Altaffer / AP

    Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, left, vice presidential running mate Paul Ryan, and their wives, Ann Romney, second form left, and Janna Ryan, greet supporters Saturday in Jacksonville, Fla.

    By NBC’s Alex Moe and Garrett Haake

    JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan went to military country Saturday and promised those serving our country that if elected, they would not cut the military budget.

    "Now there’s only one place -- there’s only one place this president’s willing to cut, and not just a little.  He wants to cut a trillion dollars out of our military budget," Romney told the crowd to boos. "Look, that’s bad for jobs and it’s bad for our national security. The world is not a safer place right now, not with Iran trying to become nuclear, dangers throughout the world.  If I’m president and Paul Ryan’s vice president we will not cut our military budget."

     

    While Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, continues to campaign against these pending defense cuts, he in fact voted last summer for the Budget Control Act of 2011, resolving the debt-ceiling debate, that included this defense sequester.

    Follow @AlexNBCNews

    Romney and Ryan spoke here in Jacksonville, which has the third-largest naval presence in the country.

    "I look around here and I see veterans, I see Air Force, I see Marines, I see Army over there, I see a lot of Navy," Ryan said before the roughly 5,000-person crowd. "Thank you for your service to our country. You make us proud."

    The GOP ticket has been trying to reach out to different pockets of the electorate in the past week to try bridging the gap for Romney as he trails President Barack Obama in polls. The GOP nominee’s wife, Ann Romney, held events geared toward both women and Hispanics. Mitt Romney traveled to Indianapolis on Wednesday to address veterans at The American Legion.

    The military vote, which according to exit polls went for Republican candidate John McCain 54 percent to 44 percent in 2008, could help Romney defeat Obama this fall.

    Romney advisers concede the state of Florida -- which even hosted the Republican National Convention this year -- is all but essential for a Republican victory on Nov. 6.

    "Ladies and gentlemen, it is in our hands, it is in your hands. Florida, Floridians, you have a major say so, you have a big responsibility and a big opportunity," Ryan said, speaking at The Landing on a very hot day. "If Florida goes the right way, America goes the right way."

  • McCain: Further delays to GOP convention 'could be harmful'

    Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., says Republican presidential candidate has been outspent by the Obama campaign and Romney needs to turn the tide and focus on women and minorities with the message

    By Michael O'Brien, NBC News

     

    TAMPA, Fla. – Arizona Sen. John McCain expressed concern Sunday that further weather-related cancellations of the Republican National Convention here could deprive the GOP of an opportunity to make its case to voters.

    Speaking Sunday on “Meet the Press,” the 2008 Republican presidential nominee said that the decision by convention organizers to effectively cancel Monday’s session due to the effects of the impending Hurricane Isaac wouldn’t have much harm on Republicans.

    Jacquelyn Martin / AP

    Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. attends a news conference about the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Thursday, July 12, 2012, on Capitol Hill.

    “It's Wednesday, Thursday night that are the big moments,” he said. “It's not that we don't want that first night, but I don't think it will be harmful if we lose the first night.”

    But, the veteran senator added: “It could be harmful if we lose more than that.”

    Recommended: Hurricane impending, Republicans cancel first day of convention

    Republicans announced on Saturday that they had decided to delay the beginning of the convention until Tuesday; the impending storm threatens logistics and safety problems that made it unfeasible to convene for Monday’s activities.

    But convention organizers haven’t yet released the revised schedule, and haven’t officially foreclosed the possibility of further weather-related changes to the schedule bleeding into Tuesday.

    Related: GOP elders describe high stakes for Romney in Tampa

    As things stand, Ann Romney and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are scheduled to be featured speakers on Tuesday evening. Mitt Romney won’t speak until Thursday, though the formal roll call vote to nominate him for president is currently scheduled for Tuesday.

  • Organized labor launches six-state voting rights effort

    By Tom Curry, msnbc.com National Affairs Writer

    Still assessing the lessons of its crushing defeat in last week’s Wisconsin recall election, the AFL-CIO labor confederation partnered with minority and youth organizations Tuesday to launch a new effort in six battleground states to register and mobilize voters and to battle any legal impediments to voting.

    The six target states: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Florida and Nevada.

    With support from organized labor and minority voters, President Obama carried all six of those states in 2008.

    Two of them – Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – have enacted strict voter identification requirements but Wisconsin's law is being litigated and may not be in effect in November.

    The Wisconsin voter ID requirement was suspended for last week’s recall election.

    AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker refused to tell reporters how much the labor confederation will spend on the voter effort but said, “We are putting every resource we have available and that means our human resource, which is the most valuable resource we have, behind this effort … We will have millions of people out there on the ground active participating in this process to ensure that voters are educated about what their rights are … and have what they need to have relative to voter ID.”

    Recommended: How election could force bipartisanship as sole path to legislative success

    She said union lawyers will help train polling place monitors who will serve as poll workers in some precincts. “We will be joining with others in (law)suits if necessary to make sure we can protect the right of people to vote…. This is a seamless kind of effort,” Holt Baker said.

    The other groups joining the AFL-CIO are the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza and a coalition of progressive youth groups called Generational Alliance.

    Andy Manis / Getty Images

    Voters cast their ballots in a recall election for the governor and lieutenant governor at the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center June 5, 2012 in Madison, Wisconsin.

    When asked whether AFL-CIO strategists had done precinct-by-precinct analysis to see why labor failed in its effort to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker last week – with Walker winning nearly 68,000 more voters than he did when he ran in 2010 – Holt Baker replied, “Some of the analysis is still being done,” but she said there was anecdotal evidence that some voters in Milwaukee were unable to vote due to lack of poll workers in some places.

    “Don’t be fooled by Wisconsin,” she said, instead labor will learn from Ohio where it succeeded in a referendum in blocking a law restricting labor union rights.

    “We hit our targets” last week in Wisconsin, said Mike Podhorzer, the AFL-CIO political director, but Walker’s allies outperformed organized labor in turning out Walker voters – “more than people expected ahead of time.”

    One lesson Podhorzer cited in the Walker victory: “They spent a lot of money on mail in addition to TV. There have been reports in the media about (Walker allies) putting up large phone banks; they invested in belts and suspenders. They decided this was a race they couldn’t afford to lose.”

    Podhorzer added that “we still don’t know who actually voted” since the voter file data won’t be available until July.

  • Romney rebounds with victory in Florida GOP primary

    /

    Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney and his wife Ann address a primary election night event in Tampa, Florida, January 31, 2012 after trouncing main rival Newt Gingrich in Florida's Republican primary.

    By Michael O'Brien, msnbc.com

     

    Updated 9:38 p.m. ET

    Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney staked his claim to the distinction of being the frontrunner for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination with a win Tuesday in Florida’s Republican primary.

    Romney easily won the contest, which was limited to only registered Republican voters, followed by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the winner of the Jan. 21 South Carolina GOP primary, in a distant second. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum finished third, and Texas Rep. Ron Paul came in fourth.

    Romney, in remarks shortly after polls closed, turned his attention back to President Obama and sought to project Republican unity. Gingrich, meanwhile, defiantly vowed to carry on in his presidential bid, all the way through August's Republican convention.

    Romney’s victory reflects a rebound in his fortunes over the past 10 days, during which Gingrich had initially seemed to be charging into Florida with momentum after the Palmetto State victory. The ex-speaker seemed to emerge as a primary threat to Romney’s shot at the nomination, mostly by stoking doubts among conservatives about the former Massachusetts governor’s ideological core.

    But Gingrich ran into a barrage of advertising in Florida sponsored by both the Romney campaign and a super PAC working on Romney’s behalf, which questioned the baggage Gingrich had accumulated as speaker, and pointed to the work Gingrich had done as speaker on behalf of troubled mortgage giant Freddie Mac after leaving office.

    Mitt Romney addresses supporters after winning the Florida Republican primary, insisting that the heated primary prepares the eventual candidate, and attacking President Obama on the economy and healthcare.

    Romney made a veiled reference to the hard-fought Florida battle in his remarks, in which he sought to posture himself as the GOP's standard-bearer.

    "A competitive primary does not divide us, it prepares us. And we will win," Romney said, adding later: "I stand ready to lead this party and to lead our nation."

    The Romney campaign and the super PAC, Restore Our Future, outspent the Gingrich campaign and a super PAC supporting the former speaker by a 4-to-1 ratio in Florida, a testament to the effectiveness of negative advertising, especially in a large, expensive state that prizes TV ads.

    The contest had essentially become a two-man showdown in Florida, since Santorum and Paul – the two other remaining GOP candidates – scarcely competed in Florida, and barely spent any resources in the state.

    Gingrich, in his remarks following Florida's results, said the race would be a two-person race going forward as well.

    "It is now clear that this will be a two-person race between the conservative leader, Newt Gingrich, and the Massachusetts moderate," the former speaker said of the results in Florida. "We are going to contest every place, and we are going to win, and we are going to be in Tampa as the nominee in August."

    Romney's victory over Gingrich, though, was mostly complete, spreading over most parts of the state, and he beat Gingrich among every age, race, gender and income group, according to exit poll data. Romney did particularly well with women, who made up almost half of the primary electorate, and Latinos – who, in Florida, were mostly Cuban voters.

    Romney also performed well with voters who rated the economy as their top issue, and voters who named the ability to beat President Obama as the most important quality in a candidate. Both are core strengths of Romney’s candidacy, and Gingrich edged Romney in both categories in South Carolina.

    But while the former Massachusetts governor beat Gingrich among self-described conservatives as a whole, the exit poll data suggested that Romney still faces challenges in winning over the most conservative elements of the GOP.

    Gingrich beat Romney among “very conservative” voters in the primary, who made up about a third of the electorate. Strong supporters of the Tea Party – who composed roughly 35 percent of voters – also broke for Gingrich.

    Newt Gingrich thanks his supporters in Florida, calling for help in defeating Mitt Romney's big money campaign, and outlines his plans for his first day in office as President of the United States.

    And while Republican primary voters Tuesday in Florida expressed positive opinions of Romney as a person, about four in 10 voters said his positions on issues are insufficiently conservative. Thirty-eight percent of primary voters said they wished another Republican candidate would enter the race, underscoring the lingering reluctance of Republicans – especially conservatives – to coalesce behind Romney.

    But for as much as Romney took strides to tamp down Gingrich during the last 10 days in Florida, he turned his attention back to the president in much of his victory speech.

    "Together, we will build an America where 'hope' is a new job with a paycheck, not a faded word on an old bumper sticker," he said.

    Still, the primary battle is set to go forward, though Tuesday's contest caps a relatively busy month for the Republican candidates, which saw Santorum eke out a victory in Iowa's Jan. 3 caucuses, and Romney decisively win New Hampshire's Jan. 10 primary.

    The campaign is now set to enter a new phase, with a relatively dead period for candidates in the next month.

    Nevada and Maine host caucuses on Saturday; Romney won in the former (which has a sizable Mormon population) in 2008. Colorado and Minnesota each hold caucuses on Feb. 7, too. Because caucuses typically favor candidates with money and organization, Romney and Ron Paul, who's focused intently on those contests, are expected to perform best.

    Those are the only nominating contests until late February, when Arizona and Michigan host its primaries. The Wolverine State is expected to strongly favor Romney -- it is where he was raised and where his father served as governor.

    The structure of the calendar means that Romney could work to secure a stranglehold on the race for the nomination or, if nothing else, dismiss competitors like Gingrich with the kind of relentless advertising that took its toll on the former speaker in the last week.

    Gingrich has defiantly vowed to take his candidacy all the way to the Republican convention, signifying the prospect of a prolonged battle for delegates. The former speaker might have his best chance to pick up some of those delegates on March 6 -- the "Super Tuesday" of the 2012 cycle, when a number of southern and more conservative-leaning states, which tend to favor Gingrich, hold their nominating contests.

    Santorum commented on the results in Nevada after a town hall, arguing that the Florida results show that he -- and not Gingrich -- was the candidate best positioned to challenge Romney.

    "We need another alternative, we need someone who doesn't have the baggage, and the personal issues as well as the inconsistencies in policies that Newt has to be the clear alternative Mitt Romney," he said.

    The former Pennsylvania senator also took aim at Romney, promising to deliver a speech on Wednesday on "Romneycare and Obamacare."

    NBC's Andrew Rafferty contributed reporting.

    Rick Santorum speaks before supporters in Nevada after placing third in Florida's primary, and stresses the need for the Republican candidates to elevate the tone of their campaigns and argue the issues instead of attacking each other's character.