JOHN McCAIN'S campaign manager claimed the Republican's team was "jazzed up" for a comeback as polls showed the race tightening in a number of key battleground states.
Rick Davis pointed to a new poll showing New Mexico as a dead heat and claimed that internal Republican polling suggested the candidates are tied in Iowa.
"We've had a lot of ups and downs, [but] the standard that the McCain campaign has created is that we fight back," he said.
"We are witnessing, I believe, probably one of the greatest comebacks that you've seen since John McCain won the primary."
Although the race is getting closer in some states and one poll put Mr McCain ahead in Florida, the Obama campaign said that new states were coming into play, including Mr McCain's home state of Arizona.
Huge turnout at early voting centres in a number of states has also encouraged the Obama camp, which said yesterday that it was now advertising in North Dakota, Arizona and Georgia, once regarded as solidly Republican. In Atlanta yesterday, voters queued for up to four hours to cast their ballots.
Campaigning in Iowa yesterday, Mr Obama warned supporters against complacency and predicted intensified Republican attacks. "A couple of elections ago, there was a presidential candidate who decried this kind of politics and condemned these kinds of tactics. And I admired him for it - we all did," Mr Obama said, referring to Mr McCain's 2000 presidential bid.
"But the high road didn't lead him to the White House then, so this time, he decided to take a different route."
A New York Times poll yesterday gave Mr Obama an 11-point lead among likely voters, with almost six out of 10 voters saying that Sarah Palin is not ready to be vice-president. A new poll from the Associated Press found, however, that 14 per cent of voters are still undecided or could change their mind before Tuesday.
Undecided voters are more likely to be white and less likely to be liberal, according to the poll, and they are more likely to view Ms Palin favourably than unfavourably.
Former secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger, who supports Mr McCain, told National Public Radio that he does not believe Ms Palin is up to the task of taking over the presidency in a crisis.
"I don't think at the moment she is prepared to take over the brains of the presidency. I can name for you any number of other vice-presidents who were not particularly up to it, either," Mr Eagleburger said.
"Give her some time in the office and I think the answer would be, she will be adequate. I can't say that she would be a genius in the job, but I think she would be enough to get us through . . . whatever period of time was necessary."
Will Florida prove the key again? Denis Staunton, Weekend, page 1
