McCain and Obama hunt for votes in final 48 hours

By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain raced through the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania on Sunday, with McCain struggling to overtake Obama's lead in the final 48 hours of the fight for the White House.

Obama warned against overconfidence at a rally in Columbus, Ohio, one of about a dozen crucial battleground states that will decide a race to succeed unpopular President George W. Bush lasting two years and costing more than $2 billion.

"Don't believe for a second that this election is over," Obama, who would be the first black U.S. president, told a crowd estimated at more than 60,000 by Columbus police. He urged them to vote and knock on doors on his behalf as the campaign hurtles toward Tuesday's election.

"We can't afford to slow down, sit back, or let up for one day, one minute, or one second in these last few days," the Illinois senator said.

McCain reached out to undecided voters in Pennsylvania, his best and perhaps last hope of stealing a Democratic-leaning state from Obama as the two candidates search for the 270 electoral votes needed for victory.

The Arizona senator is battling to wipe out Obama's lead in every national opinion poll and in many key states, and he and his top aides said he was closing the gap at the end.

"My friends, I've been in a lot of campaigns. I know when momentum is there," he said in Wallingford, Pennsylvania. "We're going to win Pennsylvania and we're going to win this election. I sense it and I feel it and I know it."

McCain planned a whirlwind day of campaigning featuring two stops in Pennsylvania, an appearance in New Hampshire and a post-midnight rally in Miami, Florida. He'll wind up the race on Monday with stops in seven states, including his home of Arizona.

"What we're in for is a slam-bang finish," McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said on "Fox News Sunday."

"He's been counted out before and won these kinds of states, and we're in the process of winning them right now," Davis said of big battleground states like Ohio, Florida and Virginia.

PLAYING DEFENSE

A flurry of new opinion polls on Sunday offered only slight evidence to back up Davis's claim. One new survey showed McCain slightly ahead in Ohio, although others showed Obama leading.

Obama has an edge in most other key battleground states, although his advantage has been whittled down in Florida, Virginia, Nevada and Pennsylvania.

McCain must defend about a dozen states won by Republican Bush in 2004, and needs to win nearly all of them.

Both candidates drove home their main themes in the final days of the race, with Obama linking McCain to Bush and adding a new twist with an advertisement tying McCain to the equally disliked Vice President Dick Cheney.