2012 Presidential Election, Mitt Romney | featured news

On the final weekend of a fiercely fought presidential campaign, President Obama holds a narrow advantage over Mitt Romney in the crucial contest for the electoral votes needed to win the White House, even as national polls continue to show the candidates in a virtual tie for the popular vote.

President Obama sought to shore up his standing in Midwestern states, including Iowa and Wisconsin, while Mitt Romney fought to secure critical states like Florida and Virginia.

Green advocacy groups on Saturday released an ad reminding voters in Ohio and Virginia that Republican nominee Mitt Romney has mocked President Barack Obama for promising in 2008 to try to slow climate change. The ad from the ClimateSilence.org campaign, which is led by Forecast the Facts and Friends of the Earth Action, will be funded with donations from supporters, who as of early Saturday afternoon had pledged $8,720.

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney remain essentially tied in the race for the White House three days before the November 6 election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll released on Saturday.

A state by state look at key races on the ballot on Tuesday. The number of electoral votes is in parenthesis.

The lone Virgil Goode campaign sign on a stretch of Virginia road was far outnumbered by placards promoting Mitt Romney. That Goode's sign was there at all in this pivotal state served as a reminder that plucky third-party candidates like the Constitution Party's nominee could muck up the works on Election Day. Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson is daring unsatisfied voters to "waste" their vote on him in the 48 states where he's on the ballot.

President Obama ripped Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Friday for running a misleading TV ad implying that U.S. auto workers are going to lose their jobs because Chrysler is moving the production of Jeeps for Chinese consumers to China.

How, other than an assumption that voters are too dim to remember what Mr. Romney has said across the years and months, to account for his breathtaking ideological shifts? He was a friend of immigrants, then a scourge of immigrants, then again a friend. He was a Kissingerian foreign policy realist, then a McCain-like hawk, then a purveyor of peace. He pioneered Obamacare, he detested Obamacare, then he found elements in it to cherish. Assault weapons were bad, then good. Abortion was okay, then bad. Climate change was an urgent problem; then, not so much. Hurricane cleanup was a job for the states, until it was once again a job for the feds.

With the presidential contest entering its final days, Mitt Romney and his top advisers are preparing to make a series of personnel announcements as early as next week — immediately after the election — should the Republican nominee win the White House, according to aides who have been working on his campaign and his transition plans.

President Obama, Republican challenger Mitt Romney and their backers are stressing different aspects of today's jobs report -- the ones that bolster their respective campaigns.