Candidates promise change on election eve

TAMPA, Fla. -- Sen. Barack Obama radiated confidence and Sen. John McCain displayed the grit of an underdog Monday as the presidential rivals wrapped up their campaigns in battlegrounds from the Atlantic Coast to Arizona.

"We are one day away from change in America," said Obama, the Democratic candidate.

McCain, too, promised to turn the page of the era of George W. Bush, and he warned about his opponent's intentions. "Sen. Obama is in the far left lane" of politics, he said. "He's more liberal than a guy who calls himself a socialist, and that's not easy."

Late-season attacks aside, Obama led in virtually all the pre-election polls in a race where economic concerns dominated and the war in Iraq was pushed into the background.

Early voting, more than 29 million ballots cast in 30 states, suggested an advantage for Obama as well. Official statistics showed Democrats who have already voted outnumbered Republicans in North Carolina, Colorado, Florida and Iowa, all of which went for President Bush in 2004.

Chuck Burton ~ Associated PressDemocratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., speaks Monday at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, N.C.

Democrats also anticipated gains in the House and in the Senate, although Republicans battled to hold their losses to a minimum and a significant number of races were rated as tossups in the campaign's final hours.

With their attention to states that voted Republican in 2004, both Obama and McCain acknowledged the Democrats' advantage in the presidential race.

The two rivals both began their days in Florida, a state with 27 electoral votes where polls suggest the race will be close.

Virginia, where no Democrat has won in 40 years, and Ohio, where no Republican president has ever lost, seemed most coveted. Together, they account for 33 electoral votes.

Democratic volunteers in Maryland, a state safe for Obama, called voters in next-door Virginia, where McCain trailed in the polls. The Democratic presidential candidate's visit to Virginia during the day was his 11th since he clinched the nomination.

Michael Conroy ~ Associated PressRepublican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks Monday at an airport rally in Indianapolis.

Unwilling to concede anything, McCain's campaign filed a lawsuit in Richmond seeking to force election officials to count late-arriving ballots from members of the armed forces overseas. No hearing was immediately scheduled.

Several hundred miles away in Ohio, voters waited as long as three hours in line to cast ballots in Columbus, part of heavily contested Franklin County.

"This is happening all over the state, from Cleveland to Dayton," said Gov. Ted Strickland, a Democrat trying to deliver his state to Obama.

Obama flew from Florida to North Carolina to Virginia, all states that went Republican in 2004, before heading home to Chicago on Election Eve.

McCain set out on a run through several traditionally Republican states. Florida, Virginia, Indiana, New Mexico and Nevada were on his itinerary, as was Pennsylvania, the only state that voted Democratic in 2004 where he is campaigning hard. His last appearance of the long day, past midnight, was a home state rally in Prescott, Ariz.