By Xinhua,
Washington : The two U.S. presidential candidates intensified competition in their respective battleground states as the elections drawing to an end, ABC News reported Saturday.
Democrat nominee Barack Obama, who is leading in the polls, campaigned to secure victories in traditionally Republican states Nevada, Colorado and Missouri on Saturday.
Then, in the campaign’s final two days, he will attempt to seal the deal in large battleground states — Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.
“We are three days away from changing the United States of America,” Obama told voters Saturday in Nevada.
Republican John McCain, meanwhile, spent Saturday in Virginia and then travel to Pennsylvania — a state billed, despite an apparently sizeable Obama lead, as a must-win for the GOP ticket.
The candidates’ running mates are joining the sprint with heavily freighted weekend schedules of their own.
Obama’s running mate Joe Biden, will spend Saturday and Sunday in Indiana, Ohio and Florida, while Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin was scheduled to target Florida, North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio.
McCain may be down in the polls, but neither his aggressive schedule nor the tone of his stump speeches admits any hint of defeat.
At a Saturday morning rally in the Virginia city of Newport News, where the latest CNN-Time poll has Obama ahead 53-44, McCain predicted a win, telling voters that the polls were swinging in his favor.
McCain will cap off the weekend in New Hampshire. While Obama is polling ahead in this state, it delivered McCain victories in both 2000 and 2008 primaries.
Last Friday’s ABC News tracking poll had Obama with a nine-point lead over McCain.
Despite the polls and last-minute endorsements, Obama was taking nothing for granted and urging voters to continue to fight.
“We can’t afford to slow down, or sit back, or let up for one day, one minute or one second in this last week. Not now. Not when so much is at stake. We have to go ahead and bring it home. We have got to go win this election,” Obama said.