DENVER, Colo. – President Barack Obama is going to vote for someone tomorrow, but he won’t say for whom.

Speaking to a crowd of 16,000 in a Denver park, the president sought to lead by example by saying he would vote early in Chicago on Thursday.

“I can’t tell you who I’m voting for,” he said. “It’s a secret ballot. But Michelle says she voted for me.”

“We can vote early in Illinois, just like you can vote early in Colorado,” the president continued, driving home the importance of early voting to the Obama campaign, which is relying heavily on getting people to the polls before Election Day.

Earlier today senior White House adviser David Plouffe underscored the importance of early voting in swing states like Colorado, saying that through early vote figures, “you begin to make some assumptions about the electorate that’s going to materialize.”

Slideshow: On the Trail

To date, 37 percent of early Colorado voters are registered with the Democratic Party. Thirty-nine percent are registered with the Republican Party and 23 percent are registered with unaffiliated parties. (The rest are registered with other parties.)

But because those unaffiliated voters do not have to pick a party, it is difficult to get a precise read on which presidential candidate is getting the most early votes.

After the Denver event, the president headed to Los Angeles, Calif. to tape a segment for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Later Wednesday he was slated to attend a campaign rally in Las Vegas, Nev.

MORRISON, Colo. — For the second time Tuesday, Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney portrayed his campaign as one that cannot be stopped and attacked President Barack Obama’s lack of vision for the country.

“You see the president’s status quo campaign, you know going forward with the same ideas as we’ve seen over the last four years is, is why he’s slipping,” Romney told an energetic crowd inside the Red Rocks Amphitheatre. “And it’s why our campaign is gaining. It’s why this movement is growing across the country, and it’s why we need you go to out and get other people.”

Romney and his running mate, Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan, made their first joint appearance together in the Centennial State with giant blue “R” lights on the rocks over the amphitheater just outside of Denver.

“We're on the home stretch now and I think the people of Colorado are going to get us all the way there, what do you think?” Romney declared before the crowd of roughly 12,000.

In recent weeks, the Romney campaign has become increasingly bullish on their chances for victory in Colorado. It is a state that Barack Obama carried by more than eight points in 2008 but which went Republican in every preceding presidential election dating back to 1992. According to the CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac poll from the beginning of October, Romney was barely leading Obama here 48 percent to 47 percent.

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

Advisers to the GOP nominee say they see the suburbs around Denver, particularly in Jefferson County, where Tuesday night's rally was held, as ripe with swing voters, disappointed in the president's leadership.

"We feel really good about Colorado. I think the key swing counties that we're going to be near in the next —during our trip there -- Jefferson county and Arapahoe county -- are I think key to our —are a big part of a winning turn-out model there," Romney senior adviser Kevin Madden told reporters traveling with Romney today. "I think those voters in those counties and elsewhere throughout the state are focused on the economy."

Romney took time during the nighttime rally that also featured performers Kid Rock and Rodney Atkins to thank all the supporters who are helping the GOP ticket across the country.

“You hear the word grassroots from time to time, about how the grassroots are involved. You recognize that the most important thing in helping change the course of a nation and setting the course on a path that will lead to greatness and prosperity again and again, that is the grassroots of America. That's the people of America. That's who we are tonight. That is you, and your willingness to be here tonight. It makes the difference,” Romney said, with just 14 days to go until Election Day.

DENVER – Mitt Romney used his final scheduled public appearance before Wednesday's first presidential debate to dismiss the expectations game played by both campaigns in recent weeks and to rally supporters with retooled economic rhetoric geared towards middle class voters.

"People want to know who’s going to win," Romney said of the debate at the nearby University of Denver. "Who’s going to score the punches and who’s going to make the biggest difference in the arguments they make."

"There’s going to be all the scoring of winning and losing, and you know, in my view, it’s not so much winning and losing or even the people themselves — the president and myself — it’s about something bigger than that," Romney continued, dismissing the parlor game of expectations-setting that has defined much of the political discourse in recent days.

In his own form of spin, Romney said he was "delighted" about the chance to debate President Obama three times in the next month and declared that the debates, taken in sum, would "be conversation with the American people that will span almost an entire month."

Before a raucous crowd of more than 5,000 supporters, Romney infused his economic talking points with a middle-class focus that perhaps spoke to the recent debate prep designed to refine his message to best appeal to undecided voters.

"Income is down some $ 4,300 dollars a family and with a median income of about $50,000 dollars that means things are really tough for the American people," Romney said. "The middle class squeeze has been unbearable. Gasoline prices way up; food prices up; electricity prices up; health insurance prices up. The American middle class is struggling under this president."

In interviews before the event, Colorado supporters uniformly told NBC News that if Romney needed to show more of a personal understanding of middle class life on Wednesday if he wanted to siphon support from the president

"I really think that Mitt needs to be more personal with the American people," said Renee Salza, a Realtor and Republican who is supporting Romney. "I think a lot of people feel he's somewhat aloof and disconnected from everyday Americans."

Romney, who referenced Colorado's defense community at NORAD and the Air Force Academy, was also joined by a state icon of a different sort, NFL Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, who endorsed Romney in a brief on-stage appearance.

“I must say today has been a very good day, not only because of what happened yesterday," Elway said, referencing the Broncos' thrashing of rival Oakland yesterday, "because I get the opportunity to introduce to you the next president of the United States, Governor Mitt Romney.”

BOULDER, Colo. – A mountain range in the near distance behind him, President Barack Obama appeared before thousands of just-returning University of Colorado students here, making a play for the youth vote in this crucial Western state. 

“I could see folks forgetting to vote. They’re having too much fun,” he said, urging the 13,000 students on CU Boulder’s Norlin Quad to go to the polls. “That’s why you are so important because you’re going to have to set an example to the person next to you in class. You’re going to have to remind them, have you voted yet?”

Students at schools like CU Boulder contributed to Obama’s 2008 victory, with 66 percent of young voters picking him over 2008 GOP nominee John McCain. But recent polls show young voters losing excitement at the prospect of voting at all in 2012, let alone showing up for Obama in as large numbers as they did last election.

Underscoring the importance of young voters in this state, the Obama campaign last week launched a “Rocky Mountain Rumble,” challenging sports rivals CU Boulder and Colorado State University to see which school can register more voters by Election Day.

Obama, who campaigned at CSU last week, noted that the school had “a little bit of a head start” and was already up by 41 registrants. “Let’s get it done,” he urged the CU Boulder students.

The president also tailored his standard campaign pitch to voters of all ages in this mountainous frontier state, hearkening back to its pioneer roots: “The story of America is about going forward. Nobody understands that better than folks in the West, because you know, this was a region that was settled by people who understand, ‘We’re not looking back, we’re going forward. We’re going forward to the next frontier, to new horizons,’” he said. 

The Romney campaign released a statement in response to Obama's speech today, alluding to Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a top Obama surrogate, who on CBS' Sunday morning show Face the Nation responded "no" when asked whether he could "honestly say that people are better off today than they were four years ago

"On the same day that the Obama campaign conceded Americans aren’t better off than they were four years ago, the President offered no solutions to the problems facing our country. Instead of taking us ‘forward,’ President Obama is taking us on a path of declining incomes, high unemployment, and trillion dollar deficits. The Romney-Ryan plan for a stronger middle class will spur economic growth, bring back jobs, and turn our economy around," Romney spokesperson Amanda Henneberg said. 

The Obama campaign is working hard to recapture the nine votes they won in Colorado in 2008 with a 53 to 44 victory over McCain. Of his eleven trips to Colorado since the beginning of his presidency, eight were in 2012, most of which were political.

Boulder County, where Obama spoke today, handed him a resounding 72 percent in 2008. But there were still regions in the state remain deeply red – after all, President Obama was the first Democrat to win Colorado since Bill Clinton did in 1992.

One such area was El Paso County in the southern part of the state, which voted 59 to 40 for McCain. Before his speech today the president sat down for interviews with two TV affiliates from Colorado Springs, the largest city in El Paso County.

Later Sunday, Obama heads to Toledo, Ohio, for a campaign event Monday morning. He’ll then travel to Louisiana where he will tour damage wrought by Hurricane Isaac.

DENVER, Colo. – Sen. Rob Portman, R-OH, visited Colorado Wednesday hoping to create a clear contrast between the GOP and President Barack Obama. And in front of a famed Obama backdrop, that difference looked as clear as it sounded.

The Ohio senator hopped out of a Mitt Romney campaign bus parked near the football stadium where, in 2008, then-candidate Obama delivered a rousing address before tens of thousands of emphatic supporters. Portman, however, addressed just 50 supporters in the unpaved parking lot outside Sports Authority Field.

"Four years ago this month, at the stadium right behind us, Barack Obama gave an interesting speech, didn't he?" Portman said. He picked apart Obama's speech, listing promises the president made about the economy and jobs that Portman said he hasn’t kept. Portman also noted the development of clean coal technologies and U.S. energy resources like natural gas and oil as failures.

"He said, you know, elect me and I'm going to bring people together to solve big problems. Has he done that? No he hasn't, sadly he has not," Portman said.

Another difference in setting that he pointed out was the absence of the Greek pillars that stood behind Obama during his convention speech, a visual that has become a Republican talking point since Greece's economic chaos of recent years.

"I expected to have the Parthenon behind me or something, whatever he had that day," Portman joked.

Portman's visit to the site of the 2008 Democratic National Convention was just one of five stops he made in the Centennial State on Wednesday, the same day Obama made campaign stops throughout the state.

And though the low-key potential vice presidential contender did not match the crowd size or attention as the president’s stop, he did have some boasting rights about a new poll that shows Romney ahead of Obama in this critical swing state.

Romney holds a tight lead over Obama in Colorado, according to a recently released Quinnipiac/New York Times/CBS News poll.

"Guess what's going to welcome President Obama to Colorado as he lands here this morning? Some new poll numbers out ... showing that Mitt Romney is ahead by five points in Colorado," Portman said during the day's first stop at a gas station in Johnston, Colo. "So look, they've outspent us but they cannot outwork us, right?"

Although the Buckeye State senator has remained mum on whether he wants or plans to join the national ticket, his schedule of late has been as busy as what one might expect from a national candidate. He raised more than $500,000 for Romney in his home state of Ohio during fundraisers on Monday and Tuesday, a dollar amount he today said was a "lowball" estimate. And, with the presumptive nominee's deep bench of surrogates, it was Portman who got the call to bracket the president in the important swing state.

But also on display during the senator's trip here was how unknown he is. At Johnson's Corner truck stop, onlookers eating breakfast or filling up on gas saw the large bus emblazoned with Romney's name and wanted to know if the candidate was onboard. When told it was Portman, several admitted they were unfamiliar with the name.

Portman’s trip was half bracketing and half rallying the troops on his own side of the aisle. Portman visited three Romney Victory Centers where he made phone calls and greeted volunteers and staffers. He used his experience as a politician in a swing state to motivate the grassroots effort. He told a gathering of Romney supporters in Jefferson County that their work could determine the outcome of the election, and with it, the fate of the country.

"As goes JeffCo, so goes Colorado. As goes Colorado, so goes the nation," Portman said.