Barack Obama, Pennsylvania | featured news

Just two days from the finish, President Barack Obama's campaign is mobilizing a massive get-out-the-vote effort, as Republican Mitt Romney makes a play for votes in Pennsylvania.

The U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania has become "too close to call" three weeks before the election, while President Barack Obama's lead in the state has slipped from 12 to 4 percentage points after a disappointing debate performance, a Quinnipiac poll said on Tuesday.

A judge on Tuesday blocked Pennsylvania's divisive voter identification requirement from going into effect before Election Day, delivering a hard-fought victory to Democrats who said it was a ploy to defeat President Barack Obama and other opponents who said it would prevent the elderly and minorities from voting.

A new poll shows President Barack Obama opening a double-digit lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in two of the nation's three largest swing states.

Citing a poll conducted by Global Strategy Group and Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group in the battleground states of Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Florida, Priorities USA claimed that more voters say Romney’s experience at Bain makes them less likely to vote for him, 37% to 27%. Claiming that its own anti-Bain ads are working, Priorities USA pointed out that in the 11 markets they’ve advertised in within those five states, Obama leads Romney by eight points (49% to 41%) compared with a three-point lead in those without the ads (46% to 43%).

While nationally the two rivals are locked in a dead heat, in 12 expected battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin — Obama leads by eight points in the survey.

President Obama, Republican challenger Mitt Romney, and their allies have already spent $87 million on TV ads, the Associated Press reports -- most of it in nine battleground states. They are, not surprisingly, nine toss-up states that will likely decide the election: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada and New Hampshire.

A man wanted in an investigation of shots fired near the White House was arrested Wednesday in Pennsylvania, a day after agents discovered two bullets had struck the executive mansion while President Barack Obama was away, the U.S. Secret Service said. The Secret Service said it discovered Tuesday that the two bullets had hit the White House, one of them apparently cracking a window on the level of the president's living quarters, while Obama and his wife Michelle were on a trip to California and Hawaii. The president has since traveled on to Australia, his second stop on a nine-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum, once the No. 3 Republican in the Senate, said Monday he's seeking the GOP nomination for president to protect American freedoms under threat from President Barack Obama.