US Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney holds a rally with his wife Ann in Cleveland, Ohio, on November 4, 2012. President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney criss-crossed America Sunday, appealing for votes in an agonizing two-day dash for the US presidency that both sides claimed was just within their grasp. AFP/EMMANUEL DUNAND
WASHINGTON—Mitt Romney will extend his 18-month presidential campaign into Tuesday so he can revisit ultimate battleground Ohio and Democrat-leaning Pennsylvania on election day, his campaign said.
The two stops, part of what the campaign described as Romney’s effort to keep working until the polls close, are new additions to the schedule of the Republican nominee, who had announced that Monday night’s event in New Hampshire would be his “final victory rally” of the campaign.
The Republican nominee’s team said Romney, locked in a tight battle with President Barack Obama, will head Tuesday to the northern Ohio city of Cleveland and Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, a state Romney had not visited for more than a month until Sunday.
But the campaign insists that Pennsylvania is now in play and Romney is seeking to broaden the potential pathway to victory, even as Obama is seen as having slim leads in most of the battleground states where the election will be decided.
The campaign has yet to provide details on the two new events, but they likely will not be major rallies, as large events would drain much-needed resources away from Romney’s get-out-the-vote efforts on election day.
Romney, who votes with his wife Ann in their home town of Belmont, Massachusetts at 8:35 am Tuesday, is scheduled to host an election results party in Boston Tuesday night, while Obama will do the same in Chicago.