The US presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have entered the last two days before voting, with polls indicating the incumbent is in the lead.
According to latest polls, Mr Obama appears to be ahead in enough swing states to secure the presidency for a second term. After an intensive Saturday criss-crossing key battleground states, the American president is targeting Democrats in Colorado, Florida, Ohio and New Hampshire on Sunday, urging them to vote.
Meanwhile, Republican candidate Mitt Romney has decided to intensify efforts in Iowa, Ohio and then in Democrat-leaning Pennsylvania. Mr Obama has an apparent edge in some key battleground states, including Ohio, while Mr Romney's campaign is projecting momentum, and banking on late-breaking voters to propel him to victory in the close race.
The Republican hopeful plans to cut away briefly from the nine key battleground states that have dominated the candidates' travel itineraries. Mr Romney, along with running mate Paul Ryan, plan an early evening rally in Morrisville, Pennsylvania in an attempt to woo disillusioned Democrats.
The key battlegrounds states in the election have been Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Hampshire.
After rules regulating campaign funding were eased for this election, the two political parties ploughed huge amounts into primarily negative advertising against the opposition. Americans in the key states have been hit by a blizzard of campaign ads. The two political parties and their allied independent groups aired more than a million ads between June and the end of October, according to the Wesleyan University Media Project.
The advertising in 10 strategic states has cost more than \$1bn (£620m). Would-be voters have been bombarded with some 40% more television advertising than the number that ran in the same period in 2008 when Mr Obama defeated Republican John McCain.
But both candidates have appeared to become more fatigued in the frenzied final weekend of campaigning. Mr Obama apologised to supporters for a hoarse voice at one speech on Saturday. His apology came as former Democrat president Bill Clinton suffered from a similar problem and told supporters in Virginia he had "given my voice in the service of my president".
Mr Obama's strategy has included appeals to the industrial Midwest, where jobs have been saved after the federal government invested large amounts in the wake of the financial meltdown. His Republican challenger trails the president in some polls in battleground states but retains a narrow and plausible path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Mr Romney's camp also argues that the Republican may not even be behind the incumbent.
They argue state polls are based on unrealistic assumptions of the size of the Democratic slice of the electorate and underplay Republican enthusiasm. Mr Romney told crowds in Colorado Springs that the vote is "a moment to look into the future, and imagine what we can do to put the past four years behind us". "The door to a brighter future is there."
But both sides realise with just two days to go the result may now be beyond their control. "The power is not with us anymore, the planning, everything we do, it doesn't matter," Mr Obama told supporters in Virginia. "It's all up to you, it's up to the volunteers - that's how democracy is supposed to be."
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