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With national and many state polls showing President Obama and Mitt Romney in a very close race, both campaigns are arguing that the polls are concealing their strength. Here's how they're making their cases:
Obama
The Obama campaign's job, The New York Times' Jim Rutenberg reports, is "creating an electorate more favorable to Democrats than most major pollsters have assumed, with percentages of Obama-friendly black, Latino and young voters that rival those of 2008, at least enough to offset the large drop in support among other segments of the population, like independent men." (On Friday, Gallup reported, "The composition of the electorate for the 2012 presidential election is looking quite similar to what it was in 2008 as well as 2004, according to an analysis of the demographics of Gallup's likely voter sample since Oct. 1." But it also suggests the electorate will be much more Republican than four years ago.)
Obama campaign manager Jim Messina told reporters on a conference call Tuesday, "We continue to think it’s going to be a higher percentage of minorities and young people than some are forecasting." He said minority voting would hit "an all-time high," because there are 250,000 more registered black and Latino voters than in 2008. In North Carolina, Messina said, 50 percent more black voters voted in the first five days of early voting than did in 2008.