Obama on course to clinch battleground states in final dash for White House

Mr McCain was forced to do all the running, dashing through seven states as he desperately tried to snatch an unlikely victory in the final hours of the White House race.

But with five per cent of voters undecided, Mr Obama’s small percentage leads in states like Ohio and Florida that had come up trumps for Republican President Bush in the past offered Mr McCain a glimmer of hope.

With polls showing the rivals neck-and-neck in two other key states, their routes criss-crossed in a frantic final day of campaigning.

Mr McCain made a frantic effort to shore up states Mr Bush won easily, while hoping to make a breakthrough in Democratic Pennsylvania.

If 72-year-old Mr McCain wins, he will be the oldest man to become President – and in a day of campaigning that started before dawn and ended after midnight, he showed grit and stamina to keep up the fight in an election which polls suggest is not going his way.

“The Mac is back and we are going to win this election,” he predicted.

His “Straight Talk Express” plane traversed the country, beginning in Florida, one of his most important battlegrounds.

He went on to Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Indiana and New Mexico before heading for Las Vegas in Nevada, which usually votes Republican but is now leaning towards 47-year-old Mr Obama.

Mr McCain ended the exhausting day back in his home state of Arizona, where he is a senator, with a midnight rally in the picturesque mountain town of Prescott.

Mr Obama’s day looked almost relaxed in comparison. The Democrat stopped in just three states – Florida, North Carolina and Virginia – all of which voted for President Bush but now look to be leaning his way.

Mr Obama, who has repeatedly warned his followers against complacency, came the closest he has dared in the whole campaign to acknowledging he was on the verge of victory.

“You start thinking maybe we might be able to win an election on November 4,” he told a crowd in Ohio. “The past couple of days, I’ve just been feeling good.”

Mr Obama, his wife Michelle and their two daughters joined Bruce Springsteen on stage at a huge rally in Cleveland.

“I want my country back, I want my dream back, I want my America back,” Springsteen shouted to the roaring crowd.

A host of national opinion surveys continued to show Mr Obama in a strong position, with the latest “poll of polls” giving him 51 per cent of the vote compared to 43 per cent for Mr McCain.

A Gallup poll last night showed that more Americans think they will be better off in four years time under Mr Obama.

Despite Mr McCain’s warning that Mr Obama would be a tax-and-spend President, the poll also showed that more Americans believe their taxes would rise higher under Mr McCain.

At least five per cent of voters were still undecided last night despite a campaign that has cost the candidates the equivalent of more than £1.25billion after record fund-raising that equates to roughly £5 a voter, up from £3.40 in the 2004 election.

The final days of a Presidential campaign traditionally become more cordial, as the candidates stop trying to destroy each other and put out only positive messages.

Not this one. After several months of vicious, negative campaigning, neither side showed any sign of letting up. The McCain campaign phoned voters and played recordings to them of Hillary Clinton, Mr Obama’s rival for the Democratic candidacy, criticising his lack of experience.

They also brought up again his support of black activist preacher the Rev Jeremiah Wright.

Mr Obama, meanwhile, mocked Mr McCain for being too close to President Bush and his hawkish Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Such is the intensity of the election that  both Mr McCain and Mr Obama plan to campaign on election day, when candidates traditionally relax.

Mr McCain will fly to the key battleground states of Colorado and New Mexico to rally the five per cent of Americans who remain undecided.

Mr Obama plans one last stop in Indiana, the state next door to his home patch of Illinois.

Indiana has been solidly Republican for more than 40 years but is now a dead heat in the opinion polls.

He will stop off in the state capital Indianapolis today before settling down in Chicago with his family to wait for the count – and what he hopes will be an enormous victory party.

Both candidates sent their running mates to Ohio, where the 2004 election was decided after a disputed count.

Republican Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin wore her signature bright red suit to campaign in front of lively crowds, while Democrat running mate Joe Biden took his wife Jill out on the campaign trail.

Mrs Palin crossed off four other states in a final sprint to the finish, rallying through Missouri, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada, all of which voted Republican last time but are far from guaranteed tonight.