Obama and Romney blitz country, last jobs report before Election Day due out Friday

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President Barack Obama gestures while speaking at a campaign event at Austin Straubel International Airport in Green Bay, Wis.,Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. Obama resumed his presidential campaign with travel to key background states of Wisconsin, Colorado, Nevada and Ohio today. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

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WASHINGTON - The last U.S. jobs report before Election Day, due Friday, was expected to provide a crucial snapshot of the vigour of the country's economic recovery, with the potential to sway a presidential race shaping up to be one of the closest in history.

President Barack Obama got good news when joblessness measured at 7.8 per cent in September, falling below 8 per cent for the first time since he took office, but it wasn't enough to give him a lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney, and the race remains in a virtual dead heat.

The Obama administration claims credit for preventing deeper problems and said the economy is recovering from the Great Recession that started under Republican predecessor George W. Bush. Romney argues the continued economic weakness demonstrates Obama's policy failures and touts his own record as a successful businessman as proof that he can create jobs.

Election Day is Tuesday, and the two candidates were streaking between campaign stops in the all-important swing states on a final campaign blitz after a three-day hiatus for Obama to manage the crisis surrounding Superstorm Sandy. Romney muted criticism of the White House incumbent during those days for fear of appearing to seek political advantage while Americans were battered by the historic natural disaster.

Obama scored the endorsement of New York City's popular mayor Michael Bloomberg, who said Thursday that Sandy had made the stakes of the election even clearer. Bloomberg, whose city was hit hard by the monster storm, said the climate is changing and that Obama has taken major steps in the right direction on that issue.

The vote of confidence from the politically independent third-term mayor of America's largest city was a major boost for Obama.

Both candidates had eagerly sought the backing of Bloomberg, a former Republican who didn't endorse a presidential candidate in 2008.

In another possible boost for Obama on Thursday, government and private sources were reporting a series of encouraging numbers about the economy. Reports on home prices, worker productivity, auto sales, construction spending, manufacturing and retail sales suggested the recovery was picking up pace, and a measurement of consumer confidence rose to its highest level since February of 2008, nearly five years ago.

However, none of that data would come close to the impact that Friday's unemployment figures would have.

Economists think Friday's jobs report will show that the unemployment rate rose to 7.9 per cent in October from 7.8 per cent in September.

Both Obama and Romney were pressing intense closing arguments in their astonishingly close race as officials across the country reported that more than 20 million Americans had already cast ballots in early voting states.

The president moved quickly across three battleground states once he returned to campaigning Thursday, while Romney made three stops in critical Virginia and his campaign launched a tough Spanish-language television ad in Hispanic-heavy Florida showing Venezuela's leftist leader, Hugo Chavez, and Raul Castro's daughter, Mariela, saying they would vote for Obama.

Both candidates were battling for support from the thin slice of undecided voters in nine so-called swing states — Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada — where voters cannot be predicted to reliably vote for the presidential standard-bearer of either the Democrats or Republicans.

Polls show Obama holds a slight lead in a majority of the battleground contests where the outcome of the vote is likely to be determined. Under the U.S. system, the nationwide popular vote does not determine the winner. Romney and Obama are actually vying to win at least 270 electoral votes in state-by-state contests. Each state has one elector for each member of the House of Representatives, seats apportioned according to population, and two for each state's two seats in the Senate. Even the smallest population state, therefore, is guaranteed three electoral votes.

Swing-state Ohio has seen and will receive massive attention from both Obama and Romney. Polls show Obama with a slight lead in the state. No Republican candidate for the White House has ever won the election without capturing Ohio.

At his first appearance of the day in Roanoke, Virginia, Romney pressed his message that he is the real candidate of change, the slogan Obama memorably made his own in 2008 and struggles to hold now.

"Real Change On Day One," read a huge banner in Roanoke, and the same on a sign on the podium where he spoke in Doswell, Virginia.

"This is a time for greatness. This is a time for big change, for real change," said the former Massachusetts governor, a successful businessman who says his background gives him the know-how to enact policies that will help create jobs. "I'm going to make real changes. I'm going to get this economy going, from day one we're making changes."

Obama seemed intent on making up for lost campaign time after a three-day turn as hands-on commander of the federal response to Sandy, although aides stressed he remained in touch with local officials and federal officials handling the storm.

One day after touring storm-battered New Jersey with Republican Gov. Chris Christie, Obama walked off the presidential plane Air Force One in Green Bay, Wisconsin, wearing a leather bomber jacket bearing the presidential seal and promptly criticized Romney.

In the campaign's final weeks, his rival "has been using all his talents as a salesman to dress up" policies that led to the nation's economic woes. "And he is offering them up as change," Obama said.