WASHINGTON — President Obama and Mitt Romney entered the final 48 hours of campaigning on Sunday with electoral bravado about the certainty of winning mixed with urgent warnings for their most fervent supporters that the hard-fought race for the White House remains razor-close.
The two rivals started their day with rallies in the two still-competitive states where presidential campaigns begin every four years, and where the fates of their political futures could be decided: Iowa and New Hampshire.
Flanked by former President Bill Clinton in the shadow of the New Hampshire state capital building in Concord, Mr. Obama vowed to continue efforts to improve a recovering economy and expressed the confidence of an incumbent that voters across the competitive battleground states will give him the chance to try.
But he also betrayed the nervousness of a first-term president whose hopes for a second term — and the opportunity to continue shaping his legacy — hinges on a half-dozen states that could go either way by the end of election day on Tuesday.
“I am not ready to give up the fight and I hope you aren’t either, New Hampshire,” Mr. Obama said before thousands of people, his voice already growing hoarse at the start of a long day of campaigning. “We have come too far to turn back now. We have come too far to let our hearts grow faint.”
He concluded: “We will win New Hampshire. We will win this election. We will finish what we started. We will renew those bonds that do not break.”
Mr. Romney spoke moments earlier with similar expressions of a certainty of success, telling about 4,400 supporters in Des Moines that the clock has nearly run out on the president’s time in office. He promised to usher in a new era of economic hope for families across the country who are struggling.
“Instead of building bridges, he’s made the divide between our parties wider,” Mr. Romney said. “Let me tell you why it is he’s fallen so far short of what he’s promised: it’s because he cared more about a liberal agenda than he did about repairing the economy.”
But like the man he wants to succeed, Mr. Romney is racing from swing state to swing state with the intensity of a candidate who recognizes that he is trailing — if only slightly — behind Mr. Obama in many of the states he must win to accumulate the 270 electoral votes he needs to become president.
“We thank you, we ask you to stay with it. All the way. All the way to our victory on Tuesday night,” Mr. Romney said to the crowd, urging them to work hard in the last hours of the campaign. “It’s possible that you may have some friends or maybe even family members who haven’t made up their mind yet who to vote for.”
The two candidates are set to hold a flurry of last rallies in the next two days to try to demonstrate the kind of enthusiasm among their supporters they hope will be evident at polling places on Tuesday.
Mr. Obama drew an estimated 14,000 people before the gleaming dome of New Hampshire’s state capital. It was a bright, chilly day that recalled any number of days that he and other hopefuls walked the streets of Concord in their quest for a victory in the first-in-the-nation primary.
Not far from where Mr. Obama spoke was a reminder of how New Hampshire almost dashed his dreams in 2008. On a line of granite stones in front of the State Library are chiseled the names of the winners of past primaries, including Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose victory halted, for a time, Mr. Obama’s surge after he won the Iowa caucus.
The president will touch down in Florida and Ohio on Sunday before making final, pre-election-day stops in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa on Monday. Mr. Obama is expected to head home to Chicago on Tuesday to watch election returns from his campaign headquarters.
Candidates Make Final Dash as Race Winds Down
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Candidates Make Final Dash as Race Winds Down
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Candidates Make Final Dash as Race Winds Down
