WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama put campaign battleground travel on hold to tour the ravaged New Jersey coast Wednesday, while down-to-the-wire campaigning resumed in swing state Florida that is critical to Republican Mitt Romney’s victory plan.
Obama was skipping voter contact a third day to meet with officials at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Washington headquarters and visit victims of Hurricane Sandy around Atlantic City.
Obama planned to resume campaign travel Thursday, making stops in Nevada, Colorado and Wisconsin.
In Florida, Romney has stops scheduled with former Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Marco Rubio in some of the most populous areas of the state: Tampa, Jacksonville and Coral Gables in the Miami area.
The Obama campaign dispatched Vice President Joe Biden to Florida on Wednesday, with stops in the smaller, more conservative markets of Sarasota and Ocala aimed at narrowing the margin where Republicans usually fare well.
GOP running mate Paul Ryan was campaigning across his home state of Wisconsin before planning to take his children trick or treating. Wisconsin is part of the Romney-Ryan campaign’s eleventh-hour strategy of trying to put Democratic-leaning states in play and forcing Obama to shift resources to areas he has expected to win.
Read tomorrow's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for full details.
