Less than a week before Election Day, President Barack Obama holds a statistically significant lead over Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the battleground of Iowa, while the two candidates are locked in tight races in New Hampshire and Wisconsin, according to new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls.

In Iowa, Obama is ahead by six points among likely voters, 50 percent to 44 percent, which is down from his eight-point lead earlier this month.

In Wisconsin, the president edges Romney by three points, 49 percent to 46 percent, which is within the survey’s margin of error. That’s also down from Obama’s six-point lead earlier this month.

Read the Wisconsin poll here (.pdf)

And in New Hampshire, Obama gets support from 49 percent of likely voters, while Romney gets 47 percent. In September, before the debates began, Obama held a seven-point advantage in the state, 51 percent to 44 percent.

“To be at 49 or 50 [percent] is a good number this close to Election Day,” Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, says of the president.

“But he doesn’t have to look far over his shoulder to see that half of the electorate isn’t with him and Romney is close.”

Yet Miringoff adds, “It is always better to be ahead than behind.”

Gender gap, early voting helping Obama
The surveys were conducted Oct. 28-29 – almost all of the interviews were conducted before Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, including New Hampshire – and they show a gender gap that’s benefitting Obama.

In all three states, he enjoys a double-digit lead among women (by 16 points in Iowa and New Hampshire, and by 14 points in Wisconsin).

Read the New Hampshire poll here (.pdf)

Meanwhile, Romney leads among men (by four points in Iowa, eight in Wisconsin, and 11 points in New Hampshire).

What’s also helping Obama is early voting.

In Iowa, according to the poll, 45 percent of respondents say they have already voted early or plan to do so, and Obama is winning those voters by nearly 30 points, 62 percent to 35 percent.

But Romney is winning Iowa voters who plan to vote on Election Day by 20 points, 55 percent to 35 percent.

(Iowa’s Secretary of State’s office says that nearly 532,000 early and absentee votes have been received as of Oct. 30, and that’s about 35 percent of the 2008 electorate in the state. But it also says that a total of 660,000 absentee ballots have been requested, and that’s 43 percent of Iowa’s 2008 electorate.)

In Wisconsin, 25 percent say they have already voted or will do so before Election Day, and those voters are breaking to Obama by a 59 percent to 39 percent clip.

Read the Iowa poll here (.pdf)

And in New Hampshire, just 10 percent say they will be voting early, and Obama wins that small segment, 56 percent to 42 percent. Among Election Day voters in the state, 48 percent back Romney and 47 percent support Obama.

Higher favorable ratings benefitting Romney
However, what has helped Romney close the gap in these three states has been his rising favorable ratings since September.

The former Massachusetts governor’s favorable/unfavorable rating among likely voters in New Hampshire is 49 percent/46 percent – which is up from 43 percent/52 percent a month ago.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

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In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

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His score in Wisconsin is 47 percent/47 percent, which is improved from 43 percent/46 percent in September.

But in Iowa, Romney’s favorable/unfavorable rating remains upside down at 43 percent/49 percent.

Also, Romney leads Obama by three points in New Hampshire on which candidate would do a better job handling the economy (49 percent to 46 percent). But the two men are tied on this question in Iowa (at 45 percent each) and in Wisconsin (47 percent apiece).

Other findings

•       Obama’s job-approval rating among likely voters is at 49 percent in Wisconsin and 48 percent in New Hampshire and Iowa.

•       In Wisconsin’s competitive Senate contest, Democrat Tammy Baldwin gets the support of 48 percent of likely voters and Republican Tommy Thompson gets 47 percent.

•       And in New Hampshire’s race for governor, Democrat Maggie Hassan leads Republican Ovide Lamontagne by five points, 49 percent to 44 percent.

The NBC/WSJ/Marist polls were conducted Oct. 28-29 of 1,142 likely voters in Iowa (which has a margin of error of plus-minus 2.9 percentage points), 1,013 likely voters in New Hampshire (plus-minus 3.1 percentage points) and 1,065 likely voters in Wisconsin (plus-minus 3.0 percentage points).

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has adamantly insisted that presidential politics are the furthest thing from his thoughts during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, though that hasn’t stopped some from filtering his praise for President Barack Obama through a political prism.

The pugnacious New Jersey governor, who supports Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney over Obama this fall (and delivered the keynote address at Romney’s nominating convention), has heaped effusive praise on Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy, the massive superstorm to wreak havoc in the northeast, and especially the Jersey Shore.

Larry Downing / Reuters

President Barack Obama and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie talk with survivors of Hurricane Sandy in a community center while touring damaged areas in Brigantine, New Jersey, October 31, 2012.

“I want to thank the president for coming here today. It's really important to have the president of the United States acknowledge all the suffering that's going on here in New Jersey and I appreciate it very much,” Christie said this afternoon as he and Obama toured the devastation. “We're going to work together to make sure we get ourselves through this crisis and get everything back to normal.”

Obama was similarly complimentary, telling people at the Brigantine community center that Christie, who is up for re-election next year in deep-blue New Jersey, “is working overtime to make sure that as soon as possible everybody can get back to normal.”

The two appeared together, along with the New Jersey congressional delegation, following their tours to give similar remarks on camera.

The mutual praise is an outgrowth of both leaders’ handling of a natural disaster, but it coincides with a crucial juncture in the presidential campaign, with just days to go until Election Day. Obama is trying to preserve an advantage in swing states as Romney barnstorms the country in an effort to subsume the incumbent president.

Christie rebuffed suggestions on Tuesday that there were political implications to his work with the administration.

"I've got 2.4 million people out of power. I've got devastation on the shore. I've got floods in the northern part of my state,” he said on Fox News. “If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics then you don't know me."

And the Romney campaign gave Christie a pass for his work with Obama on Wednesday, dismissing a question about whether the GOP nominee was annoyed by the New Jersey governor’s praise for the president.

“Gov. Christie's doing his job. He's the governor of the state that's been hit by a very, very horrific storm,” Romney adviser Russ Schriefer said in a conference call with reporters. “He's doing exactly what he's supposed to be doing as governor of New Jersey. And the president is doing what he needs to be doing as president.”

That won’t necessarily stop observers from searching for political implications in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, especially so close to Nov. 6.

“I am hesitant to kind of make political calculations about the impact of an event that resulted in the deaths of 50 people and the loss of $50 billion in property,” senior Obama campaign adviser David Axelrod said on a separate conference call this morning. “This was a disaster of huge proportions, and the president is doing what his responsibilities require -- and that includes going to New Jersey, as is what he's done in the case of every major disaster during the course of his presidency, to offer the support of the people of our country, to tour the scene himself, to speak firsthand with the first responder and the elected officials at the scene.”

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

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In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

Obama will return to the campaign trail on Thursday after canceling three days’ worth of political events. And Romney on Wednesday was mostly tentative in attacking Obama, opting instead for a softer tone and words of encouragement for recovery efforts in the northeast.

Axelrod suggested that the storm essentially washed out several days of campaigning, during which point there was no movement in the jockeying between Romney and the president.

“Wherever you think this race is, it tended to freeze the race because people are focused on the storm,” he said. “That's what's been in the news; normally the election would have been in the news. So I think it's fair to say that that is the case.”

But as a series of polls suggest Romney is trailing in some battleground states, those days might also be crucial opportunities lost.

Updated at 7:45pm ET The destruction brought by Monday’s hurricane is forcing election officials in New York City to look for new places for voters to cast their ballots next Tuesday.

New York City Board of Elections commissioner J.C. Polanco said in an interview Wednesday night that the ten commissioners are working with Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Michael Bloomberg to find suitable substitute sites to voting places that have been inundated by sewer water, have no electrical power, or are too damaged to use on Election Day.

He said one option officials are weighing is to combine polling locations, while another is “having tents near the polling sites where the voters have normally voted, with state-funded generators, where our machines will be able to be placed, and our workers will be able to serve the voters.”

The ten-member bipartisan Board of Elections faces a massive logistical task since there are four million voters in New York City; in the 2008 election, 2.6 million cast ballots.

“Thankfully we’ve been able to secure the many scanners (for optical scan voting machines) in low-lying areas. For example in the county of Staten Island, Richmond, we were able to bring all those scanners to an armory,” he said.

An additional layer of complexity in New York City next Tuesday: the use of optical scan machines which for people who only vote in presidential elections will be a new experience, “the first time in over half a century” that voters will be facing new voting technology, Polanco said.

In neighboring Connecticut, Secretary of State Denise Merrill said Wednesday that despite the after-effects of hurricane Sandy she’s optimistic that normal voting will be taking place on Election Day.

After conferring with about 240 local election officials in her state on a conference call Wednesday morning, Merrill said in a phone interview, “We are prepared to go forward with the election. There are probably about 100 polling places at this point that are without power, but it looks like most of them could be moved if needed, but we’re hoping a lot of them will come back on line (before Election Day). Even in the towns most devastated, which were along the shore, places like Greenwich, Old Saybrook, Stonington – those were the towns that were hardest hit – most of the town halls are up and running. Even though there’s widespread damage to homes, the official polling places are probably going to be fine and we’re making alternate arrangement for a lot of the processes that we have to do before Election Day.”

She said the local officials seemed hopeful that polling locations “will be up and running by Election Day. CL&P (Connecticut Light & Power) is lot better on this then they were in the past. We’re in constant communication and they’re making these polling places a priority (for restoring electricity). And most of them are fire stations and schools and town halls which are going to the first priority anyway.”  

She said Connecticut does have provisions in state law for local election officials to consolidate or move a polling place “but it’s a very last resort. Fortunately or unfortunately, we have had practice: last year we had the storm (Hurricane Irene) on exactly the same day and there were towns that had to move polling places because they were so devastated by downed trees and power lines that they did move polling places.”

Pool / Reuters

An aerial view of the storm damage over the Atlantic Coast is seen in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in Seaside Heights, New Jersey October 31, 2012.

Merrill said one challenge if polling locations are moved is to inform voters in the towns or cities affected. “It has to be handled very carefully. They did it through reverse 911 calls to people which have been used already by local officials to notify people about downed power lines and that sort of thing. You have to post notices — it’s a very extensive process.”

Merrill noted that due to the hurricane, the state has extended the voting registration deadline by two extra days (until Thursday at 8 p.m.) and “we still have registrations pouring in so there’s still a lot of election activity going on.”

Connecticut does not have early voting or no-excuse absentee balloting.

Elsewhere in storm-affected states:

• New Jersey officials were still assessing polling site conditions. Jason Varano, assistant supervisor of the Ocean County Board of Elections, said workers were still in the process of checking on conditions at poll locations in the hard-hit county. He emphasized that New Jersey does allow for voting by mail and that although it’s too late for voters to request that a ballot be mailed to them they can go in person to the Ocean County Administration building in Toms River, N.J. and request a ballot. In Cape May County, Michael Kennedy, the registrar at the board of elections said officials surveyed polling locations Wednesday and found only one municipality, Ocean City, to be affected: two polling centers there cannot be used. One is under water and the other has water damage and no electricity. The county will combine those districts with others and inform residents about the changes in polling locations.
• In New Hampshire where thousands lost electric power due to the storm, a spokesman for Secretary of State Bill Gardner said reporting from emergency services agencies indicated that power would be on line in time for Election Day.
• In West Virginia, as early voting continued, the storm’s impact was felt in a tragic way: the name of one state legislative candidate, Republican John Rose, will remain on the ballot after he was killed during the snowstorm Tuesday by a falling tree limb. Rose’s death necessitated a special write-in candidate filing period with candidates needing to file by 5 p.m. on Thursday. If voter choose Rose the governor will select a legislator from a list of three candidates submitted by the Republican Party executive committee in Rose’s home county.

NBC News’s Natalie Cucchiara contributed to this report.

SARASOTA, Fla. -- Promising to give a Sarasota audience "the whole load" of his GOP criticism, Vice President Joe Biden unloaded a barrage of derision Wednesday over a Romney campaign ad alleging that American automakers are planning to move manufacturing overseas to China.

Calling the Jeep ad "one of the most flagrantly dishonest ads I can ever remember in my political career," Biden called the allegation - which has been widely disputed by fact checkers and by the auto companies themselves - "an outrageous lie."

"All my time I have never heard an American corporation in the waning hours of the campaign engage with that kind of description of what a presidential candidate's doing," Biden said after quoting a General Motors statement calling the Romney ad "campaign politics at its cynical worst."

Responding to Biden's criticism, Romney adviser Kevin Madden said "We've got an ad out that we believe makes the case for why Gov. Romney would be stronger for the auto industry and why the auto industry's an important part of a strong economy. They've got an ad that they're using to make their case to the public, and we'll leave that with voters."

In Sarasota, Biden claimed that auto workers in Ohio have been frightened about losing their jobs because of the ad, calling United Auto Workers representatives to ask if its allegations are true.

"Folks, the president's job is not to show confusion," he said. "It's to plant the seeds of confidence."

The vice president's remarks to a crowd of over a thousand came 1100 miles away from the rust belt cities where the Romney ad is on the air, emphasizing how strongly the Obama team hopes to push back against the commercial and make its claims into a character issue for Romney. President Barack Obama is not on the campaign trail today, traveling in New Jersey with GOP governor Chris Christie to survey damage from SuperStorm Sandy.

Garrett Haake contributed to this story.

Vice President Joe Biden made a reference to possible future political ambitions at a stop Wednesday at a restaurant in Florida.

A short while after an earlier rally -- where the vice president boasted of "being a good Biden" today -- Biden slipped into a characteristic moment, to the delight of DC's chattering class.

NBC's Carrie Dann, who is traveling with the vice president, describes the scene:

At an off-the-record stop at a restaurant called "400 station" in Sarasota, Joe Biden spoke on the phone with the brother of a voter who wanted him to chat with her Republican relative.

After chatting about the health insurance law, he concluded, "Well look, I'm not trying to talk you into voting for me, I just wanted to say hi to you, okay? And after it's all over when your insurance rates go down, then you'll vote for me in 2016. I'll talk to you later."

Biden is among the handful of Democrats included in early speculative lists of possible presidential candidates in 2016, at which point the former Delaware senator would be 73-years-old.

His viability as a candidate, though, might well hinge on the outcome of the 2012 election next Tuesday, when a second term for President Barack Obama is far from certain.

TAMPA, FL -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney reined in his criticism of President Barack Obama on Wednesday, signaling a softer tone at the outset of a three-stop swing through Florida coinciding with the president's trip to New Jersey to survey hurricane damage.

Returning to the campaign trail after cancelling several campaign events out of respect to victims of Hurricane Sandy, Romney joined several prominent Florida Republicans in blending a pitch for storm recovery support with more traditional political fanfare.

In his first formal campaign event (Romney morphed one planned stop in Ohio into a "relief event" on Tuesday), Romney struck hopeful notes.

"You should know I could not be in this race if I were not an optimist. I believe in the future of this country I know we have huge challenges, but I’m not frightened by them, I’m invigorated by the challenge," Romney told supporters gathered in an airplane hangar here near the close of his remarks. "We’re going to take on these challenges we’re going to overcome them!"

And Romney included an entreaty for donations to the Red Cross as the East Coast reels from the impact of the hurricane earlier this week. (Romney himself made a donation to the Red Cross, an aide told NBC News.)

"If you have an extra dollar or two, send them along and keep the people who are in harms – who have been in harms way, who’ve been damaged either personally or through their property, keep them in your thoughts and prayers," Romney said. "We love all of our fellow citizens.  We come together in times like this and we want to make sure that they have a speedy and quick recovery from their financial and in many cases, personal loss."

Romney was joined on the trail by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, the latter of whom noted that Floridians are more familiar with hurricanes than most of the nation, and urged the roughly 2,000 attendees here to pay back the generosity they have experienced after past storms.

"People are going to be living with the aftermath of the storm, and so our hearts and our prayers go out to them, and also our help," Rubio said. "If you see on the screen the number you can text the Red Cross and make your donation. We have been the beneficiary of these donations in the past. Let's make sure we pay it forward for our neighbors and fellow Americans up north who are suffering."

Bush, who had to handle numerous hurricanes during his time as governor, also waded into the politics of disaster relief, suggesting that local governments contributed more to recovery efforts than the federal government.

"My experience in all this emergency response business is that it is the local level and the state level that really matters," he said to applause. "That if they do their job right the federal government part works out pretty good."

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney greets audience members at a campaign rally in Tampa, Florida October 31, 2012.

But today's event was certainly a return to the issues that have driven the campaign for the last year -- with Romney criticizing the president's stewardship of the economy indirectly, and offering his own plan in contrast.

“My view is pretty straight forward and that is I believe that this is time for America to take a different course, that this should be a turning point for our country, and I say that because I look at where we are and with 23 million Americans – you think about that. These are real people. These are folks trying to put food on the table," Romney said. "Twenty-three million people struggling to find a good job. This is something that requires in my view a different path than we’ve been on."

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

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In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

The pre-election battle for perceived momentum extended Wednesday into a public dispute over whether President Barack Obama or Republican nominee Mitt Romney could claim an advantage with prized independent voters.

As a new series of battleground state polls emerged this morning -- showing Romney leading Obama among likely voters who identify as independents by 5 points in Florida, 6 points in Ohio and a whopping 21 points in Virginia -- Republicans argued the president's political arithmetic wasn't as sound as the Obama team contends.

Republicans on Wednesday morning circulated emails pointing out Obama's disadvantage among independents to call into question Obama's strength in several battleground states.

"We think that across the battleground state, we have a lead among independent voters," Obama senior adviser David Axelrod said on a conference call Wednesday with reporters in response. But, he added: "That's not true across every battleground state."

The Obama strategist did say, though, that the campaign believes the president is winning enough of the share of the independent vote to emerge victorious on Nov. 6.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

What follows is a look at the breakdown of the independent vote in 2004 and 2008 exit polls in arguably the three biggest battleground states, along with the share of the electorate made up by self-described independent voters. Sometimes the winner of these state won the independent and sometimes they didn’t.

OHIO

2004 (independents were 25 percent of the electorate)

Kerry 59, Bush 40

2008 (30 percent of electorate)

Obama 52, McCain 44

2012

Quinnipiac/CBS/NYT (independents 30 percent of sample, conducted 10/23-28)

• Romney 49, Obama 43

CNN/ORC (33 percent of sample, conducted 10/23-25)

• Obama 49, Romney 44)

FLORIDA

2004 (23 percent of electorate)

Kerry 57, Bush 41

2008 (29 percent of electorate)

Obama 52, McCain 45

2012

Quinnipiac/CBS/NYT (29 percent of sample, conducted 10/23-28)

• Romney 49, Obama 44

CNN/ORC (35 percent of sample, conducted 10/25-28)

• Obama 49, Romney 44

VIRGINIA

2004 (26 percent of electorate)

Bush 54, Kerry 44

2008 (27 percent of electorate)

Obama 49, McCain 48

2012

Quinnipiac/CBS/NYT (35 percent of sample, conducted 10/23-28)

• Romney 57, Obama 36

Washington Post (35 percent of sample, conducted 10/22-26)

• Romney 53, Obama 45

COLUMBUS, OH – Just two years onto the job, Ohio’s junior senator, Rob Portman, might just be the key to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s hopes of winning the Buckeye State for next week, and the freshman senator is under tremendous pressure to deliver.

A former frontrunner to round out Romney’s ticket, Portman has become one of the most prominent and effective surrogates for the GOP candidate, having also assumed a larger role in the Romney campaign by way of playing President Barack Obama in practice debate sessions.

More than that, Portman has been intimately involved in building the kind of organization upon which Romney will need to lean if he has hopes of winning Ohio, without which the former Massachusetts governor’s path to 270 electoral votes would become dicier.

***

It was a Saturday afternoon in late July when Portman stood in front of a small group of reporters to participate in a routine he had become quite familiar with: deflect differently-worded questions about his chances of becoming the Republican vice presidential nominee.

Moments before, he had been praising volunteers at Romney's Ohio headquarters for reaching their 1 millionth voter. Portman, who chairs Romney's efforts in the state, told the room full of supporters that grassroots campaigning would make the difference in this election and that Ohio would likely determine the next president. That's why, when he stepped in front of cameras, the questions were all about the pressure he would feel to secure Ohio – which twice went for George W. Bush, but voted for Obama in 2008 – back toward Republicans.

"I already feel the pressure," he finally confided in a moment of candor before diving into a boiler plate answer about the enthusiasm he's seeing in the state.

Al Behrman / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney shakes hands with Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, after Portman introduced Romney at a campaign stop at Jet Machine, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012, in Cincinnati.

Portman was the subject of so much “veepstakes” speculation precisely because of the possibility that he could help deliver his home state for the Republican ticket.

Even though Romney tapped Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan instead, Portman said his burden is no less heavy. When asked how much pressure he feels now with polls showing a dead heat just days before the election, Portman simply said, “A lot.”

The freshman senator is deeply involved in Romney’s Ohio operation, a commitment that extends far beyond his public appearances at rallies with the former Massachusetts governor. Portman has an intense interest in grassroots campaigning and checks in with Buckeye State staff multiple times each day with questions about how many door knocks and phone calls have been made.  It will make the difference, he feels, in a close race.

The pressure to deliver Ohio, Portman says, comes not only from the fact that a Republican winning the presidency is almost certainly dependent on winning this state, but also from his concern that a second term for Obama will mean four more years of gridlock in Congress.

If Republicans pull off a victory here, Romney staff will point to Portman as a big reason why.  He’ll become more than the man who helped the GOP nominee win a debate.  He’ll become the man who helped Romney win Ohio – and quite possibly the presidency.

Romney advisers are quick to cite Portman’s thorough knowledge of the state, but Ohio Republicans point to the personal relationships he’s built over the years as invaluable.  Those relationships – with county chairs or part-time volunteers – can motivate supporters to make phone calls and knock doors simply as a favor to their down-to-earth senator.

Portman solidified many of those relationships during his 2010 Senate campaign, and he is leaning on those supporters to do now for Romney what they did for him in 2010. (Many of those relationships were even forged well before 2010, during Portman’s time as a congressman and during his involvement with the Bush campaigns in the state.)

 "We're using our folks…We're telling them, ‘Look, this is important to me,’ and most of them jumped in on the primary and all of them are helping now,” said Portman. “So we've kept our network up from our campaign two years ago and we know these people are reliable, we know they're really effective campaigners.”

Bob Paduchik, who ran Portman’s campaign two years ago, said much of the senator’s electoral success can be attributed to his understanding of the importance of retail politics. While Portman remains largely unknown as a national political figure, many of those who are running call centers are familiar with him on a personal level because of his commitment to the ground game.

Portman’s value extends to campaign surrogacy, too. The Ohio senator is keenly aware of Romney’s vulnerability on the 2009 auto industry bailout in a state where the industry accounts for an estimated one in eight jobs. In recent days, Portman has stepped forward to defend Romney on the topic of the bailout, an issue which has re-emerged in the closing days of the campaign.

"It's the policies that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan want to put in place that are going to be good for the auto industry that are going to make it strong," Portman said at a rally in Avon Lake, Ohio on Monday. "To make sure that it stays in Ohio."

But Portman’s focus on the campaign’s nuts-and-bolts might be his greatest asset, and there are signs that his emphasis is paying dividends. Romney volunteers in Ohio have knocked on more than 2 million doors this election cycle, a number they tout as one of the highest among the swing states.

 "They all know Rob. He's brought them coffee and donuts, he's brought them pizza," said Paduchik. “He’s like the general that gets out among the troops, it really inspires people."

 Just last week Portman did exactly that during four stops to Victory Centers throughout Northeast Ohio.  In Avon Lake, OH, he profusely apologized for not having enough donuts for the larger than expected crowd.

 “I have found in my own campaigns that when you lose sight of the grassroots, you tend to lose,” he said while traveling between stops.

That emphasis on the ground game is also why Portman has been in such constant contact with Romney’s Ohio State Director, Scott Jennings.

“He's like an idea factory of how to get more volunteers into a victory center or how to get an issue in front of the press in a particular county,” said Jennings. “He constantly has strategic thinking that is invaluable.”

Portman’s role has led to an uncommon situation in which not being selected as VP has freed Portman up to help the nominee in other ways that may prove more beneficial.

“No matter what happened, I was going to pour my heart into this,” he said, dismissing the notion.

 Win, lose or draw, the consensus from Romney’s high command is that they it will be a much closer battle because the state’s Republican senator has been standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Romney throughout the campaign.

 “What [Portman] has is a passion for Ohio. It's hard to quantify just how valuable that is to us,” said senior Romney adviser Kevin Madden. “He's more than just a good host through Ohio- he's a fierce advocate for Ohio.”

NBC's Garrett Haake contributed reporting.

EAU CLAIRE, Wisc. -- Six days before Election Day, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan is devoting an entire day of campaigning in his home state of Wisconsin, a state which hasn’t gone for Republicans in a presidential election in nearly two decades.

“We are used to being battleground states. There are a handful of states that will determine the outcome of this election and Wisconsin is one of them. And so know that we have a unique responsibility and a unique opportunity to help determine the course of this country for along time,” Ryan said after proclaiming his excitement to be back home.

Mary Altaffer / AP

Republican vice presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. greets supporters during a campaign event, Wednesday, Oct. 31, 2012, in Eau Claire, Wis.

The Badger State, which last awarded its electoral votes to a Republican presidential candidate in 1984, could be a determining factor on Nov. 6.

The seven-term Wisconsin congressman (who's up for re-election to his House seat next week) was optimistic about next week’s results, speaking at his first of three events Wednesday.

“So this is Wednesday morning. Think about next Wednesday morning,” Ryan told the crowd packed inside Florian Gardens. “We are going to wake up next Wednesday morning and know that we have elected a leader to put our country back on the right track.”

Ryan’s stop here marks his 12th event in Wisconsin.

Romney was originally planning to hold a rally in Milwaukee on Tuesday but was forced to cancel the event due to Hurricane Sandy's impact on the East Coast. The GOP VP nominee stopped by two Wisconsin Victory Centers on Tuesday to thank volunteers for gathering donations to send to victims of the storm.

Ryan will head to rallies in Green Bay and Racine later today before taking part in Halloween trick-or-treating with his three children tonight.

Beginning to return to the trail after Sandy: Romney campaigns in Florida… But Obama stays off the trail to inspect the damage in Atlantic City with Gov. Christie… Reading the body language with six days to go… Chrysler, GM push back against the Romney campaign… Will the Super PACs move the needle?... Or will the Obama campaign have gotten the bigger bang for its buck?

*** Returning to the trail: With just six days until Election Day, we begin to see a return to the campaign trail. Mitt Romney stumps in the battleground of Florida, while Joe Biden also is in the Sunshine State, Bill Clinton hits Iowa, and Paul Ryan visits Wisconsin. But President Obama remains off the trail -- he instead inspects the damage from Sandy with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in Atlantic City at 1:00 pm ET. (Who would have ever thought that it would be Obama, and not Romney, spending time with Christie in the last week of the election? What a picture that will be today.) With Obama in New Jersey, Romney’s return to the campaign trail is a bit tricky. “The former Massachusetts governor must show respect for the superstorm’s casualties all along the Eastern Seaboard,” the AP writes. “But Romney can ill afford to waste a minute of campaign time, with the contest virtually deadlocked in several key states.” And here is something to chew on: Given how close this election is, it won’t be surprising if the losing side ends up blaming Sandy, whether it’s fair or not. You could argue that Sandy has both elevated the president and stopped the momentum narrative for Romney. But you could also contend that Sandy has kept the president off the campaign trail for at least three days. Just like Kerry partisans blamed bin Laden video in ’04, Bush folks blamed the DUI story in ’00 and McCain folks blamed Lehman collapse in ’08, Sandy will get the blame from the losing side, period.

*** Reading the body language: So who is ahead in this presidential contest? If you look at the national polls (Pew, NPR, New York Times/CBS), it’s a dead heat. If you look at the key battleground-state polls -- like today’s New York Times/CBS/Quinnipiac surveys of Ohio, Florida, and Virginia -- then you see that Obama is slightly ahead in the pursuit of 270 electoral votes. But if you look at the campaigns’ body language, it’s hard not to conclude that Romney’s folks believe they are behind, at least when it comes to Ohio. And if they believe Ohio is the “be all, end all,” then they are behind. For starters, as we wrote yesterday, the Romney camp likely doesn’t air these Jeep ads if it’s winning the Buckeye State. And now you have GM and Chrysler pushing back against the campaign (see below). In addition, Romney is campaigning in Florida (today) and Virginia (tomorrow), which are two states he HAS to win and two states that two weeks ago seemed to be trending ever-so-slightly to Romney. Finally, all of this talk about expanding the map to Michigan, Minnesota, and Pennsylvania perhaps suggests a campaign looking for new routes to 270, especially with Romney trailing in Ohio per most polls. Yes, polls are closing in all three states. But if there was a concerted effort to put the three on the map, where was Romney campaign three months ago? Where were the outside groups SIX months ago? (Yes, we know American Future Fund has been alone in Minnesota for weeks, and they do potentially deserve credit on the GOP side for keeping the state close, but we digress.) It’s likely that both campaigns’ spin is right: Momentum has closed the race in the Lean Dem states, but Obama’s Ohio firewall also seems to be holding up.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

*** Chrysler, GM push back against Romney campaign: Have the Romney campaign’s controversial Jeep ads (on TV and radio) backfired? Well, it’s never a good development when the automakers are pushing back against the Romney camp. The New York Times: “‘The ad is cynical campaign politics at its worst,’ Greg Martin, a spokesman for General Motors, said in an interview late Tuesday. ‘We think creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back in this country should be a source of bipartisan pride.’ General Motors was pulled into the fray on Tuesday after Mr. Romney began running a new radio advertisement in which an announcer says, ‘Barack Obama says he saved the auto industry, but for who, Ohio or China?’” Also: “In an e-mail to employees on Tuesday, Chrysler’s executive, Sergio Marchionne, said that Jeep’s commitment to the United States was unequivocal. ‘I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China,’ he wrote. ‘It is inaccurate to suggest anything different.’” Question: Would the Romney camp have aired these ads if they knew they would get this kind of pushback? This goes back to our body language point above: These ads suggest that the Romney NEEDED to do something to change the political dynamic in Ohio.

*** Will the Super PACs move the needle? A week from now, we’ll have a true test case about the power of Super PACs in this presidential election. Out of the whopping $127.5 million being spent on advertisements in the final week of this race, Team Romney has a nearly 2-to-1 advantage over Team Obama, $82.9 million to $44.6 million. While the Obama campaign is the largest single advertiser this week, the Republican Super PACs are more than making up the difference. Here’s the breakdown: Obama $34.2 million, Romney $29.1 million, American Crossroads $24.1 million, Restore Our Future $17.4 million, Priorities USA Action $10.1 million, RNC $3.5 million, Americans for Job Security $2.2 million. Will that GOP advantage -- fueled by the Super PACs -- move the needle? Or are the battleground states already fully saturated in TV ads? We’ll find out Tuesday night. By the way, to put this week’s $127.5 million in perspective, Bush and Gore in 2000 had a COMBINED $136 million to spend in the general election (after the conventions).

*** Or will the Obama camp have gotten the better bang for its buck? But don’t forget this very important caveat: Because Super PACs have to pay a higher advertising rate and because the Obama camp has been maximizing its ad spending, the difference in actual advertising spots and points is likely much narrower and probably close to even. In fact, this might be the biggest underreported story of this election cycle. (NBC’s ad trackers say that the outside groups get about half, if not a third, of the per-dollar points that the candidates do.) To date, nearly $1 billion -- $951.9 million, to be exact -- has been spent on the presidential contest in the general election. Team Romney has outspent Team Obama, $559.1 million to $392.8 million. The largest advertisers: Obama $329 million, Romney $208 million, Restore $87 million, American Crossroads $87 million, Crossroads GPS $63 million, Priorities $57 million, Americans for Prosperity $46.5 million, RNC $29 million, Americans for Job Security $12.5 million, American Future Fund $7.8 million, NRA $5.1 million, Concerned Women $4.8 million.

*** Storm wreaks havoc on election preparations: States and local municipalities up and down the East Coast are having to adjust after Hurricane Sandy brought devastation leaving more than million people still without power. Where some of the biggest impact of the storm was felt – the Jersey Shore, they don’t even have power in the clerk’s office in Ocean County, they are having trouble reaching polling location leaders because so many don’t have power, and many roads remain impassable making it difficult to check on whether those locations are flooded and usable for Election Day. Officials said they’ll have a better idea in five or six days, and we’re just six days from Election Day now. Like in other states, they are extending early voting hours. In New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, there are concerns about what to do about flooded locations designated for polling, and coastal counties are struggling to assess whether power outages might force changes to polling locations. In Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia, early voting was canceled for a second day, but like in New Jersey will be extended starting tomorrow in some places. For a full wrap, check out NBCNews.com’s Tom Curry’s story here.

*** On the trail: Obama inspects the hurricane damage in Atlantic City, NJ at 1:00 pm ET… Romney, in Florida, holds rallies in Tampa (with Senate candidate Connie Mack) at 11:10 am ET and in Miami (with Marco Rubio) at 2:20 pm ET… Bill Clinton stumps for Obama in Iowa, hitting Council Bluffs, Mason City, and Waterloo… Joe Biden is in Florida… Paul Ryan is in Wisconsin… And Ann Romney visits Ohio.

Countdown to Election Day: 6 days

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The idea that your home is your castle lies at the heart of the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches.  So what if the police bring a dog to sniff for evidence at the castle door?

Two cases from Florida, to be argued Wednesday, ask the U.S. Supreme Court to decide when the police need a search warrant to use drug-sniffing dogs at a house, and how much legal authority a dog's alert gives police to search a car.

The front-door case comes from Dade County, where police received a Crime Stoppers tip that occupants of a house were growing marijuana.  After watching the house for about 15 minutes, police and federal agents sent for Franky, a drug-sniffing dog. 

A police handler walked the dog up to the front door, where Franky alerted the officer by sitting down after sniffing at the base of the door.  After using that result to get a search warrant, police entered the house and found marijuana plants growing.

Recommended: One week left: Ryan stops by traditionally blue Minnesota

But a judge threw the evidence out, ruling that "the use of a drug detector dog at the defendant's house door constituted an unreasonable and illegal search."  In other words, the court said, the police should have gotten their search warrant before they sent for Franky.

The Supreme Court has upheld the authority of police, acting without a warrant, to use dogs at airports for sniffing the outside of luggage suspected of carrying contraband or to sniff the outside of cars at roadside checkpoints. 

But the court has also said that police, without a warrant, could not stand on the street and aim a thermal imaging device at a house to see if marijuana was being grown inside with heat lamps. Such an intrusion, it held, would reveal the private activities of a homeowner, including such intimate details as "at what hour each night the lady of the house takes her daily sauna and bath."

The state of Florida argues that there's no violation of privacy in a dog's sniff at the door because drug dogs alert police only to the presence of illegal substances, something in which a homeowner has no privacy interest.

But the state's supreme court rejected that argument, finding that the Fourth Amendment's protections are at their highest at a house. It found the dog sniff to be "a substantial government intrusion into the sanctity of the home."

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers urges the Supreme Court to affirm that ruling.  "Allowing suspicionless dog sniffs of houses would permit indiscriminate sweeps of residential neighborhoods, a practice that some law enforcement officials have already begun to employ," the group says in a legal brief filed in the case.

In the second case, a Seminole County deputy sheriff pulled over a pickup truck because it had an expired license. When he noticed that the driver was shaking and breathing rapidly, exhibiting behavior consistent with drug abuse, he asked for permission to search the truck.

The driver said no, so the deputy brought out Aldo, a drug-sniffing dog, from his patrol car to sniff around the truck.  Aldo alerted on the driver's door handle. Considering that to be sufficient cause to search the car, the deputy found chemicals commonly used to make methamphetamines.  The driver then admitted he bought them for that purpose.

The Florida Supreme Court threw out that evidence, too, concluding that there's no sure way to know exactly what caused the dog to alert.  "There is no uniform standard in this state or nationwide for an acceptable level of training, testing, or certification for drug-detection dogs," it said.

The Obama administration is urging the court to rule for the deputy and Aldo.  After all, the Justice Department argues, what a policeman sees, hears, and smells can often establish the legal justification for a search without a warrant.

Dogs, the government says, do it better. "An alert by a dog trained to identify certain odors provides an even stronger basis for probable cause to search a location for the odor's source," the Justice Department says in its brief supporting the state.

ONTARIO, OH — Arizona Sen. John McCain delivered a stinging rebuke of President Barack Obama's handling of the terrorist attack on an American consulate in Libya, saying the commander in chief is either "engaged in a massive cover-up" or is "grossly incompetent."

The 2008 GOP presidential nominee focused his remarks on the Sept. 11, 2012 attack in Libya rather than Hurricane Sandy at an event in battleground Ohio that had been billed as a "storm relief and volunteer appreciation" event.

"This president is either engaged in a massive cover-up deceiving the American people or he is so grossly incompetent that he is not qualified to be the commander in chief of our armed forces. It's either one of them," McCain told Romney volunteers gathered here at a Victory Center.

Though the mention of the attacks has faded from Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's stump speech, it remains a hot button for conservatives who feel the death of four Americans was a result of negligence on the part of the White House. Democrats have condemned the accusations as an attempt by the right to politicize the tragedy, a notion McCain dismissed when speaking to reporters.

"I think it's interesting to note that when there was a success, such as when, thank God, we were able to get bin Laden, the administration poured out every single detail, even details that put American lives in danger," McCain said. He later added: "It is my obligation to the men and women who are serving to get the full story out to these four brave Americans have families. They deserve to know why their sons were sacrificed in the needless fashion."

As McCain motivated volunteers at Romney's Ohio headquarters, the GOP nominee held a relief event to collect supplies for those affected by Hurricane Sandy. Obama cancelled campaign events on Tuesday, and Romney scratched an earlier event in this state, a move McCain called "appropriate."

The 2008 presidential candidate said he believes the storm "froze everything in place while this terrible tragedy fixated the attention of the American people. Now i think they're ready to get back into this campaign."

Also joining McCain was Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who encouraged Ohioans to bring supplies to Victory Centers throughout the state. They are two of many surrogates who will be hitting the Buckeye State between now and Election Day. The focus now is turning out the base and getting as many early votes as possible before Nov. 6.

Asked to compare conservative enthusiasm now to at this point four years ago, McCain said, "I hate to admit it but it's much stronger than in 2008. That's just a fact."

Updated 4 p.m. ET — Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign doubled down on its assertion about auto industry jobs moving to China with a new radio ad in northwest Ohio. 

A Romney for president ad airing on Toledo, Ohio's classic rock station, WXKR, strongly insinuates that President Barack Obama's 2009 bailout of the auto industry has led to jobs shifting from the United States to China. 

The narrator in the ad says: 

Barack Obama says he saved the auto industry. But for who? Ohio or China? Under President Obama, GM cut 15,000 American jobs, but they are planning to double the number of cars built in China which means 15,000 more jobs for China. And now comes word that Chrysler plans to start making Jeeps is starting to build cars in, you guessed it, China. What happened to the promises made to autoworkers in Toledo and throughout Ohio? The same hard-working men and women who were told that Obama’s auto bailout would help them. Mitt Romney grew up in the auto industry. Maybe that’s why the Detroit News endorsed him saying ‘Romney understands the industry and will shield it from regulators who never tire of churning out new layers of mandates. Mitt Romney – he’ll stand up for the auto industry.  In Ohio, not China.

The radio spot follows a TV controversial ad playing to fears that Chrysler had plans to move production of Jeeps from the U.S. to China. Romney and other Republicans had previously given voice to errant reports suggesting such a shift, though those original reports referred only to capacity for production of vehicles in China for sale in China. 

The TV ad drew extensive coverage in the media for its suggestion that Jeep was moving jobs to China at the expense of positions in the United States. Toledo, a prime swing territory in the battleground state of Ohio, is home to a major Jeep production facility. 

The radio spot goes a step further in stoking fears that U.S. production of Jeeps would be moved offshore to China. 

As First Read wrote on Monday, this series of ads — running during the closing days of the campaign — mark an effort by Romney to re-frame his opposition to the auto industry bailout and defend himself from Obama's attacks on the issue.

With Election Day just one week away, state officials along the eastern seaboard are assessing the devastation done by Hurricane Sandy, which swept through the Northeast corridor and hit New Jersey and New York hardest.

For the second day, early voting was canceled in Maryland, while some in-person absentee voting locations in northern Virginia were closed, and early voting was suspended in six counties in West Virginia, a state hit by high winds and heavy snow.

Gary Hershorn / Reuters

Floodwaters surround a car parked on a street in Hoboken, New Jersey Oct. 30, 2012. Sandy, one of the biggest storms ever to hit the United States, roared ashore with fierce winds and heavy rain near Atlantic City, New Jersey after forcing evacuations, shutting down transportation and interrupting the presidential campaign.

But the looming challenge was for counties in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut where the storm surge flooded schools and other locations designated as voting sites next Tuesday. Election officials in coastal counties were struggling to assess whether power outages might force changes in some of next Tuesday’s polling locations.

The potential for disruptions to voting on Nov. 6 could depress voter turnout in storm-affected areas of New York and New Jersey, for example, but President Barack Obama is still likely to carry those two states with no difficulty.

In Nassau County, N.Y., where the south shore was inundated by the storm surge and where there are more than 900,000 registered voters, towns such as Oceanside and Long Beach are now under a foot or more of water.

Related: Campaign pause set to lift on Wednesday

Nassau County Board of Elections Commissioner William Biamonte said Tuesday that he and other officials were still trying to reach the emergency contact people at each of the polling locations in the flooded areas, but they’d been unsuccessful, as cell phone service was out in parts of the county.

Before the storm hit, officials mapped polling locations in what FEMA designates as Category 1 storm areas: 68 of Nassau County’s 400 polling locations are in that flood-prone zone.

“The real issue is power,” Biamonte said. “If we still have massive power outages a week from today, there are few options.”

One of them: when voters come to a polling location, they would be asked to fill out the ballot used in the county’s optical scan machines and instead of scanning them at the polling location (which is the normal procedure), those ballots could be taken to the county board’s office and scanned there. This option, he said, would delay the tallying of results by a day.

Biamonte said he expects voter turnout of about 670,000 in the county next Tuesday but is concerned that about 300,000 of those voters, who vote only in presidential elections, will be unfamiliar with the optical scan machines the county has adopted since 2008. That unfamiliarity might add another element of confusion on Election Day.

But “come hell or high water – which is what we just had – were going to be voting next week,” Biamonte said.

As in New York, and in New Jersey too, power outages, massive flooding, and impassable streets are making it difficult for officials along the coast to assess polling locations.

“We’re talking about relocating polling locations,” said Jason Varano, assistant supervisor of the Ocean County, N.J., Board of Elections. “We don’t know what we’re going to do. We have no plan yet.”

But he stressed, “We’re taking an assessment of everything. By tomorrow night, when roads are safe to drive down, we’ll have a better assessment.”

The county clerk’s office in Toms River, N.J., has extended its hours to accept vote-by-mail ballots. The office will stay open until 9 p.m. tomorrow through Saturday and open Sunday as well until 4 p.m., said Scott Colabella, the Ocean County clerk.

Colabella added, however, that the clerk’s office currently does not have power and had to move its phone lines.

In New Jersey, anyone can vote by mail without an excuse. Voters can request a ballot at a county clerk’s office until 3 p.m. Monday.

Ocean County – one of the hardest hit areas in the state with its 45 miles of coastline stretching from Point Pleasant to Seaside Heights and down to Long Beach Island – has 411 precincts and 250 polling locations.

Monmouth County, N.J., with its 27 miles of coastline directly to the North of Ocean, was also severely impacted. Its offices were closed Tuesday.

Varano, who said county officials are coordinating with and awaiting more guidance from the state, said it will probably be five or six days before they know exactly the extent of the damage and what the county will realistically be able to do about voting.

“Right now,” Varano said, “there are massive amounts of numbers of people without power” and that has meant he’s having a “hard time getting in touch with” some of those in charge at polling locations. His office is open, but doesn’t even have Internet yet, he said.

Ocean County cast about 275,000 votes in the 2008 presidential election and is one of the most Republican counties in the state.

In Connecticut, Secretary of State Denise Merrill will be holding a conference call at 10 a.m. Wednesday with at least 200 town clerks and voting registrars across the state in order to assess whether changes in polling locations might be needed next Tuesday.

Merrill spokesman Av Harris said state officials do not yet know if some polling locations will need to be moved due to power outages or storm damage.

Meanwhile, several counties in West Virginia were still under blizzard or winter storm warnings as of 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.

“We’ve been calling counties that are under blizzard or winter storm warning – they’re measuring the snow not in inches but in feet – and even though some of these places have gotten slammed, they’ve still managed to open their early voting sites,” said Jake Glance, a spokesman for West Virginia Secretary of State Natalie Tennant.

As for contingency plans for next Tuesday, Glance said most of the state’s 55 counties use touch-screen voting machines that can rely on battery power if electricity is still out in some places.

He said Tennant’s office has been exploring the option of deploying generators in certain precincts to keep lights on and machines operating if electric power is still out next week.

In Maryland, Gov. Martin O’Malley issued an executive order Tuesday ordering early voting centers to be open between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday after the hurricane forced cancellation of early voting on Monday and Tuesday.

NBC's Domenico Montanaro contributed to this story

DAYTON, OH — Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney will launch ads in Pennsylvania before the election to bolster what the GOP calls an effort to build upon momentum in the Democratic-leaning state. 

NBC News ad-tracking sources report the Romney campaign has bought only $120,000 in ad time, which the Republican National Committee said covers only Nov 5-6 — next Monday and Election Day itself. But the new effort is Romney's first foray into Pennsylvania since GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan held an airport rally near Pittsburgh on Oct. 20. Romney last campaigned in Pennsylvania in late Sept.

The Romney campaign said Tuesday that this effort marked an expanded capacity for the former Massachusetts governor to win a more reliably blue state. But the buy, for now, is only for Johnstown-Altoona (central PA) and Philadelphia, which is a small buy given the expensive Philly TV market. 

Romney joins Restore Our Future, a supportive super PAC, in advertising in Pennsylvania. The super PAC's move prompted President Barack Obama's campaign to make its own ad buy in the state, spending at least $1.3 million on broadcast and cable in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh from Wednesday through Election Day. The size of that ad buy could expand. 

The Romney campaign released a copy of a new ad, entitled "Crushed by your policies," which focuses on coal miners in western Pennsylvania. That spot could have crossover appeal into swing territory in eastern Ohio, where the economy also relies on coal.

The Romney campaign's released a memo accompanying news of its ad buy, arguing that the new ad was evidence that Romney would be going on offense in the Keystone State, which last voted for a Republican in 1988.

"With one week to go, and 96 percent of the vote on the table on Election Day in Pennsylvania, this expansion of the electoral map demonstrates that Governor Romney’s momentum has jumped containment from the usual target states and has spread to deeper blue states that Chicago never anticipated defending," Romney campaign political director Rich Beeson wrote in the memo.

The Obama campaign quickly fired back with a memo of their own, and arguing that the late game effort by the Romney campaign to compete in traditionally blue states indicated fear in Boston that Romney would lose Ohio, a state he's campaigned in more than any other, and in which many independent analysts agree his political fortunes may yet rest.

“Three things are now absolutely clear in this race – we have a significant early vote advantage in states from North Carolina to Nevada, there is no Romney momentum in the battleground states, and the Romney campaign has found itself with a tremendously narrow and improbable path to 270 electoral votes," Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote. "Now, like Republicans did in 2008, they are throwing money at states where they never built an organization and have been losing for two years.  Let’s be very clear, the Romney campaign and its allies decision to go up with advertising in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota is a decision made out of weakness, not strength."

Vice President Joe Biden was set to campaign in Pennsylvania this week, but the trip was cancelled due to Hurricane Sandy.

Emmanuel Dunand / AFP - Getty Images

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney talks to supporters calling for donations during a storm relief campaign event to help people who suffered from hurricane Sandy, in Kettering, Ohio, on Oct. 30, 2012.

KETTERING, OH — Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney collected donated supplies for hurricane victims on the East Coast on Tuesday, while urging supporters to give money to the Red Cross at a hastily arranged "relief event" in Ohio.

"Thank you for your help and your generosity," Romney told supporters, as he stood on a table surrounded by donated goods, at the location of a planned campaign rally this morning. "If you have a little extra, if you have more canned goods, bring them along to our victory centers that are open.  But also if you can write a check to American Red Cross that's welcome as well.  We're looking for all the help we can get for all the families in need."

Romney had been scheduled to hold a full-fledged campaign rally in this same building until late yesterday, when the campaign said it was scrapping Romney's political calendar as Hurricane Sandy approached the East Coast. Monday night, the campaign announced this morning's event was back on, but the focus would be storm relief — with Romney making no formal remarks, and no political agenda attached.

Attendees were asked by the campaign to bring donations of non-perishable goods, which are to be trucked to a Red Cross office in Sewell, NJ — or to give to the red cross directly.

Romney's remarks were indeed without a political focus, with no direct mention of the election now just one week away, or of President Barack Obama or any specific campaign issue. After speaking and packing boxes, Romney and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman helped load the donated supplies into a truck for shipment, ignoring questions about whether he planned to tour storm damaged areas, and on his views of the future of FEMA.

Despite effort to the contrary, no political event can be entirely apolitical in late October of an election year, and some trappings of a rally remained here. Romney's long biographical video played once, well before Romney arrived at the venue, and outside the arena vendors sold buttons and hats to attendees as they left. 

Mandy Hess, an administrative assistant at a medical office in Kettering who attended the event with her teenage son, said she wasn't bothered by the hint of politics mixed in with the relief effort.

"It's letting you know who he is as a person and what his roots are, and that people and family are what's important to him so I think that ties into the relief effort," Hess said. 

The GOP nominee himself kept his focus on the storm victims, and tried to strike an uplifting tone, telling supporters that their effort, however small in the grand scheme of things, would matter.

"I know that one of the things I've learned in life is you make the difference you can," Romney said.  "And you can't always solve all the problems yourself, but you can make the difference in the life of one or two people as a result of one or two people making an effort." 

The campaign resumes in full force Wednesday, with Romney planning three rallies in Florida, while his vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan hits the trail in Wisconsin. 

President Barack Obama canceled his campaign trips to Ohio on Wednesday as the rest of the 2012 presidential campaign prepared to largely resume its usual stride in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.

Brendan Hoffman / Getty Images

President Barack Obama makes a statement in the White House briefing room following a briefing on Hurricane Sandy on Oct. 29, 2012.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney — who was holding an event on Tuesday in Ohio ostensibly intended to collect supplies and donations for storm relief — appears set to head to Florida on Wednesday before heading to hurricane-stricken Virginia on Thursday.

Earlier Tuesday, the White House announced that the president will no longer make his planned campaign trip to Ohio, and instead remain in Washington, D.C., to monitor fallout from Sandy.

With just a week remaining until Election Day and precious few hours remaining for Obama and Romney to sway swing voters in a series of battleground states, both candidates had to weigh politicking with sensitivity to the East Coast victims of Hurricane Sandy.

The president faced additional official responsibilities in assisting to restore power to millions of Americans without electricity, and helping states cope with damage to infrastructure and beyond.

Obama won plaudits from a top supporter of Romney's — New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — for his handling of the storm's aftermath.

But, speaking on Fox News, the pugnacious New Jersey governor also angrily dismissed efforts to interpret his comments through a political lens.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

“I have a job to do," he said. "If you think right now I give a damn about presidential politics, than you don’t know me."

Each presidential contender turned to surrogates on Tuesday to carry their message.

Related: Romney set to return to hurricane-stricken Va. on Thursday

Former President Bill Clinton was set to stump for Obama in Minnesota and Colorado, while Ann Romney was scheduled to hold a rally in Iowa following several hurricane relief events earlier Tuesday in Iowa and Wisconsin.

Wednesday's campaign schedule resembled a more traditional agenda for candidates just six days before an election. Vice President Joe Biden was set to make stops in Florida, and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan was scheduled to campaign in his native Wisconsin.

The Romney campaign's official mobile phone application advised events for the former Massachusetts governor in Florida.

At this point, Obama's next publicly advised campaign events were set for Thursday, when the president was scheduled to make a three-state campaign swing with stops in Las Vegas, Boulder, Colo., and Springfield, Ohio.

Also on Thursday, according to the Republican Party of Virginia, Romney will make the first trip of any candidate to that battleground since Sandy struck.

Romney hasn't visited the Old Dominion state since Oct. 17, and canceled a planned visit this past Sunday for fear of diverting resources from preparedness operations.

 The hurricane's aftermath continued, though, to inject broader uncertainty into the race for president and scores of downballot campaigns, as candidates' schedules were re-arranged on the fly.

Power outages and canceled campaign events also complicated pollsters' efforts to gauge public opinion in states affected by the hurricane.

Of additional concern to both campaigns might be impact of inclement weather and hurricane fallout on early voting, a process used by both Romney and Obama to bank votes ahead of Nov. 6 itself.

Biden suggested on the "Enrique Santos Radio Show" on Tuesday morning that the hurricane may depress early voting.

"It may, it's just hard to tell now," he said of the storm's impact. "We've gotten the early vote out pretty well so far."

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will be the first candidate to campaign in hurricane-stricken Virginia with a rally on Thursday in the Richmond area. 

The Virginia Republican Party released an invitation Tuesday morning to a Romney event in Doswell, Va. later this week, the GOP candidate's first trip to the state since preceding Hurricane Sandy.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney walks off of his campaign bus at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport on Oct. 29, 2012 in Cleveland, Ohio.

The afternoon event was promoted by the Virginia GOP as a makeup for the rallies in Virginia the Romney campaign had scheduled for last Sunday. The Republican's campaign canceled those events so as to not distract resources from preparing for the hurricane, and subsequent relief efforts. 

Recommended: Storm aftermath not likely to delay election

Northern Virginia — one of the state's population centers and a firm chunk of battleground territory — was more heavily affected by the storm; power outages and storm damages are thought to be less severe in central and southern Virginia, which includes Richmond and was not as severely struck by the hurricane. Moreover, Romney called Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) on Monday to consult about emergency preparedness.

But the decision to return to Virginia for the first time carries a degree of sensitivity. President Barack Obama was set to resume campaigning later this week, though his schedule doesn't call for any stops in states most acutely affected by Sandy, including the battleground states of Virginia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania. 

But with the election just a week away, it's not clear that Romney could afford to stay out of Virginia much longer. His last visit to the state was on Oct. 17, for a rally in Leesburg.

MSNBC political analyst and former RNC Chairman Michael Steele, former Democratic senator from Arkansas Blanche Lincoln and USA Today's Susan Page talk about where President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are Tuesday and how Hurricane Sandy could impact the last week before the election.

Could the vast disruption caused by Sandy prompt a delay in the Nov. 6 presidential election?  Voting may be extensively disrupted in some of the swing states, including Virginia and Ohio.

The answer is, yes, it could undoubtedly be delayed.  But it almost certainly won't be.

The Constitution gives Congress the authority to establish the day for presidential elections, and since 1845, a federal law has set the date as "the Tuesday after the first Monday in November." Congress could change the date, just as it could change any federal statute. But it would have to act quickly.

And of course, it's the states, not the federal government, that run elections in America.  Many states in areas not affected by Sandy's wrath would be likely to oppose a delay and its attendant costs. They could choose to go ahead with their elections for all but president and have a separate election for president later.  But such a move would undoubtedly suppress the turnout. 

Past disasters, including weather emergencies, have forced postponement of state and local elections.  New York state suspended its primary election in 2001 -- on September 11th, the day of the suicide hijack attacks. But few states have a regular procedure for doing it.  Florida, with its long experience in dealing with hurricanes, is one of the few with specific procedures in place, allowing the governor to suspend or delay elections.

Slideshow: Sandy slams into East Coast

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

Superstorm Sandy made landfall Monday evening on a destructive and deadly path across the Northeast.

Launch slideshow

John Fortier, a nationally respected expert on presidential elections, points out additional problems, writing on a blog sponsored by the Moritz School of Law at Ohio State University. 

"If voting were disrupted and postponed in one state," Fortier says, "then we will likely know the results in all the other states before voting can resume in the affected state. If the affected state or states are determinative of the electoral college outcome, the pressure and focus on that one state would be enormous."

Among other questions, he says, are what to do with votes already cast.

Finally, consider the fact that never before the U.S. history has a presidential election been postponed or canceled, not even during the Civil War.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

The government’s real high-wire act: beginning the recovery… Don’t expect a delay with next week’s election… But election precincts could be moved… Something’s happening out there: The number of named storms has increased every decade… Could the election all come down to the auto bailout?... Make no mistake: The Romney camp wouldn’t be airing that Jeep ad if it were ahead in Ohio… But the map expands to Minnesota and Pennsylvania… And Romney holds a storm-relief event in Kettering, OH, while Bill Clinton campaigns in Minnesota and Colorado.

*** The government’s real high-wire act: Now with Sandy moving away from the East Coast, the real impact begins today -- assessing the damage, realizing what happened, and the government (federal, state, and local) beginning the recovery. And this is the true high-wire act for President Obama and his administration: making sure the recovery and relief begins immediately and as smoothly as possible. Every hiccup could get amplified; that’s the real political danger for the president. Then again, he has the bully pulpit and a job to do. Already, the late-night calls to Republican Gov. Chris Christie are public (thanks to Christie, not the president, by the way). Meanwhile, as we said yesterday, Mitt Romney, might be in the trickier spot. He has no job to do right now -- he can’t look overtly political. Romney today is doing a relief event, which means no politics. But the setting? It’s very political: Ohio.  

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A woman touches a fallen tree in Manhattan's Alphabet City neighborhood in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in New York October 30, 2012. Millions of people across the eastern United States awoke on Tuesday to scenes of destruction wrought by monster storm Sandy, which knocked out power to huge swathes of the nation's most densely populated region, swamped New York's subway system and submerged streets in Manhattan's financial district. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly (UNITED STATES - Tags: DISASTER ENVIRONMENT)

*** Don’t expect a delay in the election: Could Sandy cause a delay in the election, which is supposed to take place exactly one week from today? NBC’s Pete Williams says it’s possible -- but very unlikely. Per Williams, the Constitution gives Congress the authority to establish the day for presidential elections, and since 1845 a federal law has set the date as "the Tuesday after the first Monday in November." Congress could change the date any time it wants, just as it could change any federal statute. But it would have to act quickly. What’s more, Williams adds, it’s the states, not the federal government, that RUN elections in America.  Many states in areas not affected by Sandy's wrath would be likely to oppose a delay and its attendant costs. They could choose to go ahead with their elections for all but president and have a separate election for president later. But such a move would undoubtedly suppress the turnout. Finally, Williams says, consider that never before in U.S. history has a presidential election been postponed or canceled, not even during the Civil War. 

Slideshow: Sandy slams into East Coast

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

Superstorm Sandy made landfall Monday evening on a destructive and deadly path across the Northeast.

Launch slideshow

*** But election precincts could be moved: That said, one of us talked with senior administration officials and learned that FEMA head Craig Fugate has informed states that the federal government would reimburse them to move polling places and import generators to conduct the election next week.  Fugate himself has experience with this in Florida. The state, in 2004, had to move polling places for a primary because of power and other storm-related issues. The most likely scenario has FEMA essentially helping the states open as many polling places as possible; you’ll also likely see various state governments decide to allow displaced folks to vote in different polling stations provisionally. And it will likely mean a potential messy counting situation. But a delay is very, very unlikely.

*** Something’s happening out there: Your First Read authors don’t pretend to be meteorologists or Dr. NOAAs, but it’s hard not to look at the following data and conclude that something is indeed happening out there when it comes to the climate. Simply examine the history of named storms in the Atlantic. As many of you may know, a storm doesn’t get a name until it reaches Tropical Storm status. And the names are given each year alphabetically. For decades, getting to the back half of the alphabet was VERY rare. Now? Very common. Take a look: In the 1970s, there were just an average of under eight named storms per year; in the 1980s, the average was just under nine; in the 1990s, it was about 11; in the 2000s, it jumped again, to nearly 15 storms a year; and -- get this -- in the first three years of this decade (2010, 2011, 2012), the average is under 19. Specifically, we had 19 named storms in 2010, 18 in 2011 and, SO FAR, we’ve had 19 named storms (and there’s an entire month left in hurricane season). 

*** Car Talk: Mitt Romney loves cars. His father headed a U.S. auto company. And he even launched his 2008 presidential campaign from the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI (taking the stage to Billy Ocean’s “Get out of my dreams, get into my car”). So here is the irony of this presidential election: It could all come down to Ohio (where one in eight jobs are tied to the auto industry) and Romney’s opposition to federal government’s auto bailout. As NBC’s Mike O’Brien wrote yesterday, the Romney campaign’s effort to muddy the waters on the auto bailout -- misleadingly suggesting that Jeep is outsourcing U.S. jobs to China -- is its latest tactic to play defense on the issue. The Obama camp responded with its own ad yesterday. “When the auto industry faced collapse, Mitt Romney turned his back,” the ad goes. “And now, after Romney’s false claim of Jeep outsourcing to China, Chrysler ITSELF has refuted Romney’s lie. “The truth? Jeep is ADDING jobs in Ohio.” It concludes, “Mitt Romney on Ohio jobs? Wrong then… Dishonest now.” And stumping in Youngstown, OH yesterday, Bill Clinton fired back, calling it “the biggest load of bull in the world that [Chrysler’s Jeep] would ever consider shutting down their American operations.” 

*** As GM goes, so goes Obama’s presidency -- and the election? Here is the bottom line regarding the Romney camp’s Jeep ad: It gives the impression that they’re trailing in Ohio. Otherwise, they never would have resorted to this kind of TV ad; it’s the feel of going nuclear. As we wrote in 2009, after the federal government’s takeover of GM of Chrysler, “As GM goes, so goes the Obama presidency.” But little did we know back then that Romney’s own opposition to the bailout could be the issue that possibly saves Obama in a very close election.

*** Expanding the map: Today, Bill Clinton campaigns for Obama in Minnesota, where a recent poll showed the president with just a three-point lead (although another poll had him with a larger advantage). Also, the Obama campaign announced yesterday that it would begin to advertise in Pennsylvania, given that the pro-Romney Super PAC Restore Our Future is up with a big buy there. And a new poll findsObama leading Romney by just six points in Oregon, 47%-41%. (Obama won Oregon by 16 points in ’08, but John Kerry carried it by only 4 points in ’04.)  This goes back to what we were talking about yesterday: Romney definitely has momentum outside the main battleground states; that’s why the national polls are sitting where they are. But not much has changed in the battleground states, where the advertising is going on. But it is also a reminder if that somehow there is a tipping point in this election that hits the battlegrounds, Romney has a shot at getting a much higher electoral vote figure than perhaps many folks realize. Bottom line: The chances of Romney getting 52-53% of the popular vote are much greater than Obama.

*** On the trail: Most of the campaign activity has been cancelled or delayed due to Sandy: Romney attends a storm relief event in Kettering, OH at 11:00 am ET… Bill Clinton stumps in Minnesota, hitting Minneapolis at 10:30 am ET and Duluth at 1:00 pm ET before heading to Colorado… And Ann Romney is in Iowa.

Countdown to Election Day: 7 days

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YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Pushing back hard at a new ad by political opponents, Vice President Joe Biden and former President Bill Clinton accused the Mitt Romney campaign Monday of saying "absolutely anything to win" and engaging in an attack on President Obama's auto industry record that is "the biggest load of bull in the world."

Related: Jeep ad caps Romney effort to recast opposition to auto bailout

The tough rhetoric comes after the Romney campaign launched an ad in Ohio claiming that ""Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians, who are going to build Jeeps in China."

Speaking to over 4,000 supporters in Youngstown, Clinton flatly decried that as "bull."

"It turns out, Jeep is reopening in China because they've made so much money here, they can afford to do it and they are going on with their plans here," he said. "They put out a statement today saying it was the biggest load of bull in the world that they would ever consider shutting down their American operations. They are roaring in America, thanks to people like the people of Ohio."

Biden, whose stump speech was even more littered with folksy appeals than usual as he shared the stage with Clinton, accused Romney of "pirouettes more than a ballerina" on his auto industry stances and called the ad "an absolutely patently false assertion."

"Ladies and gentlemen, have they no shame!?" he added. "I mean, what? Romney will say anything, absolutely anything to win, it seems."

Obama's record on the auto industry bailout is largely credited for buoying his poll numbers in swing state Ohio, a firewall Romney is eager to burn through.

Biden on Monday also accused Romney of proposing to "liquidate" the auto industry, a claim that the GOP nominee vigorously contests.

“Today, Vice President Biden falsely claimed that Mitt Romney wanted to ‘liquidate’ the auto industry, and was dishonest about the administration’s own record," said Romney spokesman Ryan Williams. "Mitt Romney’s support for loan guarantees and warranties for the U.S. auto industry is clear. The Obama campaign is less concerned with engaging in a meaningful conversation about his failed policies and more concerned with arguing against facts about their record they dislike." 

The deadly hurricane that is sweeping across the Eastern seaboard interrupted early voting in some states Monday, even as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney urged voters in Ohio to cast their ballots early.

Speaking at a campaign event in Ohio, Romney noted the significance of early voting: “I know that early voting has begun. Get out there and vote, I see a voter right there. Get out and vote, we want ya early. We need you. It sends a very strong message ...”

He explained that “all the media follows how much early voting is going on, and they look at your zip code and where you live and make an estimate of whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, and they decide whether we’re ahead or we’re falling behind.”

But Hurricane Sandy’s path of disruption and destruction may turn some would-be early voters into old-fashioned Election Day voters if it keeps them from driving or walking to their poll station over the next few days.

Early voting has been under way in Ohio since Oct. 2. Much of the state was under high wind warnings from the National Weather Service for Monday and Tuesday.

Matt McClellan, a spokesman for Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, said Monday that the county boards of elections prepare contingency plans for emergency situations that are reviewed by Husted’s office.

“The Secretary of State's office is also receiving daily updates from the Ohio Emergency Management Agency on the weather. We are confident that at this point in time local boards are prepared,” McClellan said.

In West Virginia – which, unlike its neighbor Ohio, hasn’t been a hotly contested state in the presidential race – snow was falling Monday as forecasters  predicted total snowfall of up to three feet in some parts of the state.

West Virginia has an early in-person voting option and early voting has been going on since last Wednesday. Secretary of State Natalie Tennant said in a statement Monday that early voting was continuing, but she cautioned, “If you don’t have to go out, stay inside and make sure you are ready for this storm. Be mindful of high water, downed power lines, and icy conditions. Please, do not go out and risk your safety to try and make it to an early voting location. There are several more days of early voting and even Election Day, which is next Tuesday.”

Tennant said her office is working with county clerks to develop contingency plans for early voting locations in the event that electricity is cut off.

In Maryland, with its coastline directly in the path of Hurricane Sandy, Gov. Martin O’Malley issued an executive order Sunday canceling early voting for Monday and Tuesday and extending the early voting period through Friday.

In Virginia, a state that Romney and President Barack Obama have fought fiercely to win, absentee voting is permitted (by mail or in person) in cases where a person will be absent from the state on business on Election Day or in cases of disability or illness.

Due to the hurricane, local election offices were closed Monday in several of the state’s largest cities and counties including Loudon County, Arlington County, and Fairfax County.

In-person absentee voting in Virginia ends at the close of business on Saturday.

Other states in the track of Hurricane Sandy that do not allow for early in-person voting are: New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, and Connecticut. They do permit absentee ballots to be cast by mail, although in some cases a reason is required.

In Pennsylvania, where Vice President Joe Biden will be campaigning Friday and where a pro-Romney Super PAC will be spending $2 million on TV ads in the final days of the campaign, there is no early in-person voting, but voters can mail in an absentee ballot.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

The deadline in Pennsylvania for applying to a voter’s county Board of Elections for an absentee ballot is Tuesday. Completed absentee ballots must be received by 5 p.m. on Friday, but since this is a presidential election year, the state will count absentee ballots received by the close of the polls on Election Day for the offices of president and vice president.

The hurricane’s impact on voters was reaching as far away as Minnesota, where Secretary of State Mark Ritchie told people in his state who were being deployed to the East Coast to assist with the emergency response to Hurricane Sandy to vote absentee-in-person before they leave or to request an absentee ballot.

“We want to make sure every eligible Minnesota voter can vote. My office is contacting emergency-response organizations, utility companies and relevant government agencies to ensure that those who have already departed and others who are being mobilized can vote,” Ritchie said in a statement.