President Obama surveyed the devastation wreaked by the superstorm Sandy today with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in what both men say was a non-political event, but was a powerful image of bipartisan cooperation just six days before the election.
Obama was greeted on the tarmac by Christie, a vocal supporter of Obama's challenger Mitt Romney, and the two men boarded the president's Marine One helicopter to asses the damage along the battered New Jersey shore.
Christie has praised the president for his oversight of federal emergency efforts. Although it was not a political statement, Christie's comments are an unlikely endorsement of the president's leadership at crucial juncture in the race.
Together the two men cut an image of bipartisanship and cooperation ahead of next week's vote, as polls show the race in a dead heat nationally.
New polls in three key swing states show Obama holding his lead in Ohio and wiping away Romney's advantage in Virginia and Florida.
Obama leads 49 percent to 47 percent in Virginia and had a 48 percent to 47 percent edge in Florida, according to the Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll.
Obama's lead in those two states are within the margin of error, meaning the candidates are essentially tied, but Republican rival Mitt Romney was leading in those states just a few days ago in other polls.
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo
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Watch Video In Ohio, Obama is maintaining a five point lead with a 50-45 margin, according to Quinnipiac.
In a new video today, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina said he thinks Obama is in the dominant position heading into Election Day because, "We are ahead or tied in every single battleground state."
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But the Romney campaign disputed the results of the Quinnipiac surveys, claiming that it overestimates the size of the Democratic turnout.
Ohio, Virginia and Florida are among the most vital of the battleground states for both campaigns.
This is the first major poll of the swing states released since superstorm Sandy made landfall Monday evening, wreaking billions of dollars in damage and delivering an October Surprise that no pundit had predicted. The polls, however, were taken before Sandy arrived and may have altered voter attitudes towards the candidates.
Romney today goes back to a day of full campaigning after a brief respite out of respect to the storm victims, and his campaign hopes that the momentum generated in the days before Sandy hit will hold through Election Day.
He will attend two "victory rallies" in Florida today, with a number of high profile conservatives including former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Sen. Marco Rubio.
Obama will return to campaigning Thursday with events in Green Bay, Wisc., Las Vegas, Nev., and Boulder, Colo.
Meanwhile, Romney as well as conservative Super PACs are spending big in the Democratic-leaning states Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
The Republicans say Romney's lead nationwide gives them the opportunity to go after Obama in blue leaning states, which the president does not yet have fully locked up. The Democrats, however, say Republicans are spending because advertising in the swing states is already saturated with political ads, and buying new ads is prohibitively expensive for outside groups.
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