Ken Cuccinelli, Republicans’ candidate for governor in Virginia, unveiled a major new tax plan on Tuesday, and it very much resembles proposals by GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans from over the past year.

Cuccinelli debuted a new plan that would cut about $1.4 billion in taxes, namely by making major reductions to the state’s personal income and corporate tax rates. The Virginia attorney general’s plan would cut the personal income tax rate to 5 percent (down from 5.75 percent) and reduce the corporate tax rate to 4 percent (from 6 percent).

Cuccinelli sold his “Economic Growth and Virginia Jobs Plan” as a way to not only cap government spending in Virginia, but to also ease the burden on Virginia taxpayers and encourage new business investment.

Of course, it’s hardly unusual to hear a high-profile Republican candidate for office call for a regimen of tax cuts during the height of campaigns. But Cuccinelli’s similarities to many contemporary Republicans extends to the way in which he would finance the cost of the tax cuts, as well.

Per the website for Cuccinelli’s plan, the attorney general would help offset the $1.4 billion price tag for his tax cuts by indentifying and eliminating “outdated exemptions and loopholes that promote crony capitalism.”

Steve Helber / Steve Helber / AP file photo

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli gestures as he talks about the Supreme Court decision on the Health Care law during a press conference Thursday, June 28, 2012 in Richmond, Va.

That’s an approach remarkably similar to the kind preferred by Romney during his presidential campaign last year, and subsequently by congressional Republicans during their negotiations with President Barack Obama over the automatic tax hikes that almost took effect this year as part of the “fiscal cliff.”

Romney and the GOP lawmakers each largely declined to specify the exact loopholes and deductions they would target as part of their reforms. Because of the few details about the specifics of their plans, it made it difficult for analysts to account for the exact price tag of their tax proposals. Moreover, in the case of Romney, he was left vulnerable to charges that his plan would actually result in higher taxes for many middle class Americans, since if some of the costliest tax deductions – for instance, the home mortgage interest deduction – were eliminated, it would disproportionately affect middle class households.

A spokeswoman for Cuccinelli said that a task force called for by the plan would be put in charge of adding greater detail about which exemptions the gubernatorial candidate would eliminate to meet his target.

But in a campaign against Democrat Terry McAuliffe that has already become a murky battle of volleying characterizations about the other candidate and his proposals, it’s not hard to imagine the Cuccinelli plan becoming a ripe target for McAuliffe, unless more meat is added to the plan’s bones.

This story was originally published on Tue May 7, 2013 3:27 PM EDT

Republican Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell denied any wrongdoing in his business dealings with a family friend and donor, saying Tuesday that an FBI probe into that relationship does not impair his ability to serve as governor.

McDonnell largely dismissed a Washington Post report on Monday, which said that federal investigators were exploring the relationship between the McDonnell family and a major donor: Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams. Williams paid the $15,000 catering bill at the wedding of McDonnell’s daughter.

“I think it’s important for the people of Virginia to know nothing has been done with regard to my relationship with Mr. Williams or his company, Star Scientific, to give any kind of special benefits to him or his company or, frankly, any other person or any other company during the time that I’ve been governor,” McDonnell said on Washington’s WTOP radio.

The Virginia governor acknowledged the gift from Williams to his daughter, but said that it wasn’t previously disclosed because under state law, gifts given to family members don’t have to be reported by officeholders.

Joshua Roberts / Reuters

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) during their annual meeting in Washington in this file photo taken February 19, 2010.

“I made the determination -- and I believe it was correct -- that it was a gift to my daughter, and therefore under the current laws it did not need to be disclosed,” McDonnell said, adding that the controversy has caused “a fair amount of pain” for him personally.

McDonnell denied giving any preferential treatment to Star Scientific, which has come under scrutiny for its production of a nutritional supplement. Additionally, a former chef at the governor’s mansion, who faces a separate trial on embezzlement charges, has alleged in court filings that there was an improper relationship between the McDonnell family and Williams.

McDonnell, a possible contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2016, said that while he could not comment about an ongoing trial or investigation, there was no reason to doubt his ability to serve.

“I’ve had a remarkable opportunity to serve these last three and a half years, and there’s nothing going on at all that impairs my ability to do a good job and to serve the people of Virginia,” he said.

The controversy involving Star Scientific could end up making significant waves, though, in the race this year to succeed McDonnell as governor of Virginia, a position that can serve as a launching pad for further political ambitions.

Terry McAuliffe, Virginia Democrats’ nominee for governor, has seized on Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli’s ties to Star Scientific -- partly to ding the GOP gubernatorial candidate, and partly to deflect Cuccinelli’s own attacks on McAuliffe for his ties to the environmentally friendly automaker, GreenTech.

At issue are gifts disclosed by Cuccinelli given to him by Williams, the Star Scientific CEO. The attorney general had previously acknowledged receiving several thousand dollars’ worth of gifts from Williams, including travel and lodging. He amended his disclosure forms on Friday, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported, to include additional gifts from Williams and other undisclosed gifts.

(A spokeswoman for Cuccinelli said Friday that the attorney general had “voluntarily and personally undertook a thorough review of all travel records and scheduling information to determine if there were any instances not reported in his financial disclosures,” which prompted the amended disclosure. Cuccinelli has also recused his office from prosecuting the case against the former executive chef at the governor’s mansion.)

The flap over Star Scientific has all at once made ethics and transparency a central issue in Virginia’s high-profile governor’s race, while also inviting additional mudslinging between the two candidates on those very issues.

The McAuliffe campaign, for instance, called on Tuesday for Virginia to establish an independent ethics commission to investigate and enforce ethics standards. The Democrat also voiced support last week for a ban on gifts over $100 for Virginia’s governor and first family.

The Cuccinelli campaign, meanwhile, has focused on trying to pressure McAuliffe to release more detailed personal income tax information beyond three years’ worth of summaries. The conservative attorney general’s campaign has also circulated a report from NBC’s affiliate in Richmond raising questions about McAuliffe’s Greentech project based in Mississippi.

This story was originally published on Tue Apr 30, 2013 5:02 PM EDT

WAKEFIELD, Va. — Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for governor in Virginia, is no Mitt Romney – and that’s one trait that his most ardently conservative supporters appreciate.

"The thing I think that's cool about Ken is you know where he comes from, he's going to be direct and honest, and he's not going to tell you what you want to hear — he's going to tell you what he honestly believes," said Connie Meyer, one of the hundreds of Cuccinelli supporters who attended last week's "Shad Planking" — a rite of political passage in rural Virginia featuring cold beer and smoked fish.

"I might not agree on everything with him, but I know who he is," Meyer said.

Cuccinelli, the Old Dominion's attorney general and an outspoken conservative, will have to hope that independent and moderate voters agree with Meyer if he's to have any hope of beating his Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe, in November.

The high-profile campaign will test whether a dyed-in-the-wool conservative like Cuccinelli can remain palatable in a state like Virginia, which has undergone steady changes that have transformed it from a cornerstone of the Old South into a 21st Century swing state.

Patrick Kane / AP

Shad fish nailed to planks slow-cook over coals during the 65th Annual Shad Planking on Wednesday, April 17, 2013 at the Wakefield Sportsmen's Club in Wakefield, Va.

"I think I have a lot broader record than what is widely known," Cuccinelli told NBC News following his speech at the 2013 Shad Planking. "I talk to groups, one at a time. I've put a lot of miles on cars, talking to Virginians in their communities and doing it pretty regularly."

A former state senator from suburban Washington, D.C., Cuccinelli distinguished himself on the state and national level as a reliable conservative. He led the charge against President Barack Obama's health care law in court, and broke more recently with Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, a Republican he's hoping to succeed, over a landmark transportation law that raised some taxes.

Many of Cuccinelli’s supporters at last Wednesday’s event said his conservative credentials are beyond reproach, and suggested that Cuccinelli would not moderate his views in pursuit of higher office.

But the gubernatorial nominee's ideology could be his undoing. Democrats have become more reliable contenders in statewide races in Virginia; Obama won it in both of his presidential campaigns, and the state boasts two Democrats in the U.S. Senate. The growth of D.C.'s suburbs in northern Virginia — fueled in part by government spending — has transformed Virginia into a more prosperous and diverse state.

Cuccinelli's campaign will test conservatives' hypothesis that a forceful conservative message, if articulated well, is the path to GOP resurgence (rather than a gradual moderation of the party).  And the outcome of his campaign could have reverberations throughout the Republican Party nationally, as the party establishment works to broaden its appeal  by adopting a more inviting tone toward those who disagree with it.

Even supporters worry that Cuccinelli is too forthright about his views.

"I don't support gay rights, and I'm against abortion — but he has to tone down his rhetoric," said Ray Hughes, a retired food production executive who resides in Norfolk.

Patrick Kane / AP

Ken Cuccinelli speaks during the 65th Annual Shad Planking Wednesday, April 17, 2013 at the Wakefield Sportsmen's Club in Wakefield, Va.

Indeed, much of Cuccinelli's speech before several hundred attendees of this year's Shad Planking focused not on social issues, but bread-and-butter issues like job and the economy. He sought to humanize himself by talking about his service work earlier in his life, and his work as attorney general to free some wrongfully convicted inmates. (His campaign has been eager to publicize instances of the latter.)

And McAuliffe found himself as much of a target of the attorney general's comments at the Shad Planking as anything else. Cuccinelli repeatedly made reference to Greentech Automotive, the environmentally-friendly auto company that McAuliffe helped found (and from which he subsequently resigned). Cuccinelli reeled off jokes about Greentech, referencing the fact that its production was based in Mississippi, not Virginia.

Those jokes sat well with the crowd at Shad Planking, a group that tended older, whiter and Republican. (In the past, Democrats were more of a presence at this fundraiser for the Wakefield Ruritan Club; this year, the event was dominated with tents for GOP candidates, and groups like Americans for Prosperity and Heritage Action.)

But the voters at this year's Shad Planking aren't the ones Cuccinelli will have to convince. The Virginia election, held in Washington's backyard during an off-year, and combined with the relative brashness of McAuliffe and Cuccinelli, have all the makings of a "squeaker," said Don Woodsmall, a former attorney who's supporting the attorney general.

"I don't think you'll find two candidates more extreme — their style, their ideology, everything about them," he said. "I think Cuccinelli's going to be swinging for the fences. It always has the potential to backfire, but I think you win people over to your principles."

This story was originally published on Mon Apr 22, 2013 12:42 PM EDT

There’s been plenty of talk among Washington Republicans about the need to recruit better candidates, the kind who will avoid cringe-worthy campaign moments that did in several GOP candidates last fall, and weighed down the party nationwide.

But there are already several conservatives gearing up for high-profile races over the next two years who threaten to stop that effort in its tracks.

Following the missteps of candidates like Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock – the Senate candidates in Missouri and Indiana, respectively, who lost winnable Senate races after making roundly criticized comments about rape – establishment Republicans have been far more vocal about the need to rein in primary processes that produced such nominees.

The fact that 2012’s mistakes were not an aberration compounded Republicans’ worries. The same Tea Party fervor that produced rock stars like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio yielded Republican Senate nominees like Christine O’Donnell, Ken Buck and Sharron Angle – GOP candidates regarded as having squandered good pickup opportunities in Delaware, Colorado and Nevada.

This week’s Republican National Committee report recommending ways to strengthen the party came out and said it bluntly: “Groupthink is an issue.”

But in races like this fall’s gubernatorial campaign in Virginia – along with several high-profile state races next fall – will offer direct tests of whether the GOP can finally navigate the narrow strait between conservative allegiance and electability in the general election.

The most immediate test will come this fall in Virginia, where Ken Cuccinelli is the candidate looking to keep the governor’s mansion in Republican hands for two consecutive terms for the first time since the mid-1990s.

Cuccinelli has long been a favorite of conservatives, having used his current office as state attorney general to launch court challenges to President Barack Obama’s health-care law. His reservoir of support on the right helped push Virginia’s relatively more moderate lieutenant governor, Bill Bolling, out of the race. (Bolling subsequently weighed running as an independent candidate, but decided against it.)

And already, Cuccinelli has run his race in swing-state Virginia as an unabashed conservative. (His campaign-year manifesto, appropriately, is entitled “No Apologies.”) Whether that tack will work in a state that’s drifted toward the political middle – represented best by Obama’s wins there in 2008 and 2012 – is very much an open question, one which will be answered this fall.

Already, likely Democratic nominee Terry McAuliffe’s campaign has revived a familiar playbook against Cuccinelli, seizing every opportunity to cast him as out-of-step with Virginia voters. The latest example came this week when a Democratic tracker released a video of Cuccinelli appearing to compare slavery to abortion during a speech last summer.

"Over time, the truth demonstrates its own rightness, and its own righteousness," Cuccinelli says in the clip. "Our experience as a country has demonstrated that on one issue after another. Start right at the beginning -- slavery. Today, abortion."

The McAuliffe campaign pounced.

“His comments reflect a career-long focus on an extreme ideological agenda that has nothing to do with Virginians’ top concern: the economy,” the Democratic candidate said. “Politicians who constantly create controversy on divisive social issues harm Virginia’s standing as one of the best states for business.”

And, looking ahead to some of next year’s campaigns, there are other GOP candidates who could follow in Cuccinelli’s steps and pose a challenge to Republicans’ efforts to seek out pitch-perfect nominees to wage successful campaigns in swing states.

Steve Helber / AP file photo

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli gestures as he talks about the Supreme Court decision on the health-care law during a press conference Thursday, June 28, 2012 in Richmond, Va.

In Iowa, Rep. Steve King has an inside track to the Republican nomination in next year’s Senate race, where he’ll be looking to pick up a seat for the GOP following the retirement of Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin. He survived a competitive re-election campaign last fall, an experience which he said hadn’t caused him to back off of his brand of unflinching conservatism. 

“I went through the toughest election of my life last fall. I had tracking cameras around me from St. Patrick’s Day through Nov. 6 … always focused on me, trying to get a second or a minute that they could use against me in an ad,” King said in his speech last week before CPAC, the gathering of conservative activists. “They’re in the business of trying to undermine and weaken us, and I didn’t back up on any principle.” 

Republicans are also nervously watching Michigan, where they’re trying to avoid the missteps of 2012, when Senate nominee Pete Hoekstra doomed his campaign early on with a racially-charged ad targeting Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. 

Already, several Republicans have bowed out from the race, easing the path for the libertarian-minded Rep. Justin Amash, should he decide to seek the nomination. Though his conservatism isn’t necessarily in the mold of Cuccinelli or King, Amash would almost certainly face the same efforts from Democrats looking to cast him as too conservative for the Great Lakes State. 

Just in his second term, Amash has exhibited a repeated willingness to ruffle fellow Republicans’ feathers, so much that he ended up being one of the four House Republicans stripped of their committee assignments by the GOP leadership this year. He told National Review in December that House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, would not be welcome in his district. And Amash was one of the lawmakers Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., last week called “wacko birds” for their opposition to the Obama administration’s drone policy.

Amash was one of 10 Republicans who, on Thursday, voted against Rep. Paul Ryan’s 2014 budget because it didn’t go far enough in cutting spending. Another was Georgia Rep. Paul Broun, a deeply conservative Republican who’s the only officially announced GOP candidate in the state’s Senate race. 

He said in an interview earlier this month that his fellow Republicans aren’t doing enough to repeal Obamacare, despite the repeated votes to repeal part or all of the law. (It inevitably dies in the Senate, or would face a veto from Obama.) 

“There are a lot of Republicans who call themselves conservatives, who, in fact, are not,” Broun said. “We need to continue to, every few weeks, have a bill on the floor to repeal pieces of Obamacare as well as votes to repeal the whole law. President Obama will not sign a bill, but that’s the point.”

Related:

GOP report calls for sweeping reforms to compete in 2016

Three days, two breakout stars and one Big Gulp: Eight takeaways from CPAC

'We have to compete': GOP assesses path back to power

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor sought to lead Republicans past their dollars-and-cents fights of the last two years, arguing Tuesday for a more expansive agenda that resonates with a broader scope of Americans.

As the GOP works to redefine itself in the wake of an electoral drubbing last fall, Cantor outlined a series of policies he said Republicans would pursue over the next two years. The agenda includes staples of Republican politics — tax and entitlement reforms, for instance — but also education, immigration and research and development, particularly in the sciences.

Recommended: Obama calls for at least short-term fix with cuts, revenue to avoid sequester

"In Washington, over the past few weeks and months, our attention has been on cliffs, debt ceilings and budgets, on deadlines and negotiations," Cantor said at a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think-tank in Washington. "But today, I'd like to focus our attention on what lies beyond these fiscal debates. Over the next two years, the House majority will pursue an agenda based on a shared vision of creating the conditions for health, happiness and prosperity for more Americans and their families."

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., speaks to the media following a Republican Conference meeting on Feb. 5, 2013 at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

The speech fits squarely within the rubric of reinvention sought by the GOP at the advent of President Barack Obama's second term. The Virginia congressman offered generally familiar proposals, couched in the rhetoric of middle class advancement. This "softer" approach to policy-making squares with an emerging Republican consensus that the party does not necessarily need to change its policies so much as frame them in a way that is more relevant to middle class, minority, and women voters.

To that extent, Cantor was flanked at moments during his speech by students from schools in inner-city Washington, a master's student from China looking to stay in America, a nurse from Baltimore looking for a more flexible work schedule, and a former intern of Cantor's who benefited from improved medical technology.

Cantor sought with his speech to put a newer, more accessible face on the Republican Party; whether he'll succeed is a question that might not be answered for two or four more years.

First Read: Cantor's shift on immigration

One policy shift Cantor did announce was in regard to immigration. The No. 2 House Republican embraced the thrust of the so-called DREAM Act, a piece of immigration legislation looking to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children a pathway to citizenship.

"It is time to provide an opportunity for legal residence and citizenship for those who were brought to this country as children and who know no other home," he said.

Other points of emphasis were familiar to any observers of the contemporary GOP.

On education, Cantor called for increased access to vouchers, more efficient spending per student, cost transparency in college tuition and fuller disclosure to students about the career prospects associated with different degrees.

On immigration, Cantor endorsed easier access to green cards to immigrants with high-level degrees, a reformed guest worker program and stronger employee verification tools.

And in an appeal to middle class workers, Cantor endorsed giving all employees greater flex-time at work and simpler simpler ways to file taxes.

On top of this, Cantor appealed to Republican staples: comprehensive tax reform and reforms to Medicare (including streamlined provider networks, and increased leeway for states to administer their own programs).

The recurring theme, though, for Cantor involved an appeal directed intently toward middle class voters.

"Government policy should aim to strike a balance between what is needed to advance the next generation, what we can afford, what is a federal responsibility and what is necessary to ensure our children are safe, healthy and able to reach their dreams," Cantor said.

Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA), someone many think has an eye on 2016, made an announcement today that could have an impact on his future ambitions.

Virginia has a transportation problem in Northern Virginia. Congestion and tangled roads are the norm. McDonnell wants to try and fix it, but it all requires money. Lots of money.

Today, he proposed eliminating the gas tax, but raising the sales tax and increasing fees on things like hybrid cars and alternative-fuel vehicles.

The Virginian-Pilot:

Central to the governor's plan, whose component parts would raise an estimated $3.1 billion for transportation over 5 years, is elimination of Virginia's 17.5-cent per gallon gasoline tax for most passenger vehicles -- the levy would remain in place for diesel fuel. Virginia would be the first state to go that route if it dumps the fuel tax, according to state officials. ...

McDonnell would replace the state surcharge on gas by increasing the state's current 5-cent sales and use tax to 5.8 cents and dedicating all additional revenue generated from that to transportation. Even at that level, state officials say Virginia's sales tax would remain lower than rates in surrounding states.

The administration's argument for the swap is that the buying power of the gas tax, a key road revenue source, continues to dwindle as construction costs rise and vehicle fuel efficiency standards improve. ...

Aside from the tax swap proposal, other elements of McDonnell's plan include:

- A $15 increase in annual registration fees on motor vehicles.

- An annual $100 fee on alternative fuel vehicles, including hybrids.

- Another attempt to dedicate a greater slice of existing sales tax revenue -- from the current .5 percent to .75 percent over five years -- to roads.

- Receiving more sales tax revenue from online retailers, a plan contingent Congress' passage of a law giving states the authority to compel such merchants to collect taxes on sales made through their sites and remit them to Virginia.

FAIRFAX, VA -- Mitt Romney barnstormed the Old Dominion on this final full day of campaigning, cramming two stops, separated by hundreds of miles, in this hotly-contested swing state over the course of just a few hours.

Here on the campus of George Mason University, Romney was greeted by his best crowd of the day for a boisterous rally that seemed to overwhelm the GOP nominee, prompting him to joke that the attendees must have been expecting someone else to take the stage.

"That is really something special. I am looking around to see if we have the Beatles here or something to have brought you but it looks like you came just for the campaign and I appreciate it," Romney said to 8,000 supporters here. "Your voices and your energy and your passion are being heard all over the nation."

Romney's rally here was a rare foray into Fairfax County, which broke heavily Democratic in 2008 and where he must cut into President Barack Obama's margins to carry the state.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife Ann Romney wave to the crowd at a Virginia campaign rally at The Patriot Center at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va., Monday, Nov. 5, 2012.

Romney touched down in Lynchburg, Virginia earlier in the afternoon for a lunchtime rally on the tarmac before a smaller crowd of a few thousand supporters. This was safer territory for the Republican nominee, since Arizona Sen. John McCain carried all of the surrounding counties in 2008 and are expected to remain in the GOP column this fall.

To carry Virginia on Tuesday, Republicans will likely need to run up wide margins in these central and western counties, and Romney opened his remarks in Lynchburg by thanking the volunteers in crowd, and urging them to do yet more in the race's final hours.

"Your voices are being heard all over the nation loud and clear, thank you. I also want to thank many of you in this crowd that have been out there working on the campaign. Making calls from the victory centers, and by putting up a yard sign, in your neighbor's yard," Romney joked.

"This is a campaign about America and about the future we’re going to leave to our children. And we ask that you stay at this all the way until victory on Tuesday night," he continued.

Romney did add a tinge of conservatism to his usual "closing argument" speech, blaming Obama for being overattentive to a "liberal agenda" at the expense of minding the economy. Romney also warned of the specter of "card check," a union organizing reform law detested by conservatives.

STERLING, Va. -- For a second time in two days, Vice President Joe Biden on Monday predicted a strong electoral showing for Democrats, saying "it's all over but the shoutin.'"

"I'm feeling good," the vice president told reporters at Mimi's Cafe during an unscheduled stop. "I really am but you know, as an old expression goes it's all over but the shoutin'."

Biden predicted - as he did yesterday in an interview with MSNBC's Chris Matthews - that the Obama-Biden ticket will prevail in "firewall" states, but he acknowledged that swing states of Virginia and Florida could be squeakers.

"I'll take a one-vote majority, but I think we have a clear shot at doing well and the so-called firewall," he said, envisioning victory in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire.

"I think Florida will be close but I think we have a real shot of winning," he added. "And this state, we got a clear shot of winning it."

Biden's last full day of pre-election campaigning in virginia marks his ninth trip to the state this year.

He is barnstorming today with Senate candidate Tim Kaine, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and retiring Sen. Jim Webb.

Virginia remains a toss up. That’s the takeaway from a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll out from the battleground released Sunday.

Read the full Virginia poll here (.pdf)

Just two days before what is shaping up to be a very tight presidential election, President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney remain in a statistical tie for Virginia's crucial 13 electoral votes. Obama holding a narrow 48 percent to 47 percent edge among likely voters in the commonwealth. (There’s little change with registered voters – Obama’s advantage grows one point, 48 percent to 46 percent.)

Three weeks ago, the results were reversed in the poll, with Romney holding a 48 percent to 47 percent edge.

The president continues to benefit from better feelings about the direction of the country. While more people think that the country is headed in the wrong direction (49 percent) than the right path (46 percent), it's still an improvement from just three weeks ago when the spread was 10 points (53 percent wrong direction, 43 percent right path).

Biden on 'Hardball:' Obama's firewall will hold

That’s a consistent trend seen in the battlegrounds and national polls since Labor Day. Voters had consistently been saying the country was off on the wrong track by much wider margins.

There also continues to be a slight gender gap, with the president leading Romney 51 percent to 45 percent among women, but that chasm has been cut in half since last month.

That’s about the margin Obama won by in Virginia in 2008 over Republican Sen. John McCain – seven points.

But more men said they support the president this month than last. Last month, Romney led by 15 points with men; this month, it’s five points. McCain beat Obama with men by four points in 2008 in Virginia.

Final NBC/WSJ poll before election: Obama 48 percent, Romney 47 percent

Obama’s approval is 49 percent, a point better than his ballot score. Seven-in-10 Virginians said they approve of the president’s handling of Hurricane Sandy.

Geography is key to either side’s victory on Tuesday. The president needs to run up big margins in the Washington, D.C., suburbs. He leads there by 17 points, 56 percent to 39 percent. But in the swing Northern Virginia exurbs, Romney holds a narrow edge at 49 percent to 47 percent. Romney also leads by five points in the central/western part of the state, is up eight points in swing Richmond/eastern part of the state, and is tied with Obama in the Tidewater region.

Romney leads by five points with independents, but Obama leads by 12 points with moderates. In 2008, Obama won independents by a point and moderates by 17 points.

In the Senate race, Democrat Tim Kaine continues to edge Republican George Allen 49 percent to 46 percent, a two-point improvement for Kaine.

The poll was conducted Nov. 1-2, interviewed 1,165 likely voters, and has a margin of error of +/- 2.6 percentage points. The party ID in the poll is +3D. In 2008, it was +6D.

Surrogates for President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney projected outward confidence on Sunday in each candidate's ability to win on Election Day.

As the final NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll showed a close race nationally between the two candidates, their top supporters squabbled over who held the upper hand in critical battleground states.

"I'm very confident that, two days out from Election Day, the president's going to be re-elected on Tuesday night," said David Plouffe, a White House adviser who managed the president's 2008 campaign, on "Meet the Press."

There are seven states, worth 89 electoral votes, considered true "toss-up" states on NBC News' battleground map: Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Ohio, Virginia, Florida and New Hampshire. Other competitive states include Nevada, which has leaned slightly for Obama in recent polls, and North Carolina, which has tended toward Romney in many recent polls.

"All these states right now, we think the president's in a good position to win," Plouffe said.

Both Obama and Romney spent Saturday barnstorming these battleground states in hope of shoring up their base and shaking loose prized undecided voters in the final hours of the campaign. But their professed confidence belied a much more competitive battle for the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency, especially as an uncertain finale loomed over the 2012 campaign.

The Romney campaign said its Sunday schedule — which took the former Massachusetts governor to Pennsylvania and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan to Minnesota — both states which Republicans have only contested as of late — was a sign of surging national momentum. But Democrats castigated those trips as a sign of desperation, as Romney scrambled for new pathways to 270.

One of the most hotly contested battleground states includes Virginia, which Obama has put into play in 2008 and again in 2012. It also has one of the earliest poll closing times in the nation on Tuesday, and could offer political observers an early indicator of the trend lines in the election.

"We're going to win this state, and I think we're going to win it a lot bigger than people are predicting," said House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican who represents a Richmond-area district.

He added: "I see here on the ground, there is a lot of enthusiasm for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan."

But political bravado is a well-worn tradition for the closing days of the elections, and Plouffe was quick to seize upon Romney's plans to spend some of his final campaign stops in Virginia and Florida, two states he might not be able to afford losing come Tuesday night.

"We think Gov. Romney's playing defense," the White House aide said of Virginia and Florida. "I'd rather be the president today than Gov. Romney in terms of those two states."

Plouffe also characterized the Obama campaign's position in Iowa and Ohio — two footholds of the president's Midwestern "firewall" — as "commanding," though he cautioned the campaign must execute its get-out-the-vote efforts on Tuesday if it is to secure those states.

Follow the final weekend of the campaign with NBC Politics:

• NBC/WSJ poll: Obama 48, Romney 47
• Clinton joins Obama for rally capping whirlwind day
• Uncertain finale looms amid weekend campaign blitz
• Romney implores Colorado for 'one last push'
• Biden zings Romney in Colorado
• Ryan travels to Pennsylvania, trying to put state in play
• Obama plays up 'trust' in battleground Ohio
• Obama aide explains 'voting is best revenge' comment
• Ryan: 'We believe in change and hope'
• Romney strikes optimistic tone as final weekend opens
• Polls: Obama stays ahead in Ohio, deadlocked with Romney in Fla.
• GOP's chances at Senate imperiled by self-inflicted wounds

Wrapping a whirlwind day of campaigning, President Barack Obama joined Bill Clinton — the last Democratic president, and vocal advocate for Obama — at a massive rally Saturday evening in northern Virginia. 

Before a crowd estimated at 24,000, Obama both literally and figuratively embraced Clinton, who has emerged as one of the most dogged advocates for the president's re-election campaign this fall. 

"He has been traveling all across the country for this campaign. He's been laying out the stakes so well that our team basically calls him the 'Secretary of Explaining Stuff,'" Obama said. "He was a great president; he has been a great friend."

As the final weekend of the 2012 campaign raised the question of which candidate, Obama or Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, would best move Washington past its intractable problems, Clinton, a president who has only grown more popular since leaving office, offered Obama his imprimatur. 

"As you see, I have given my voice in the service of my president," the hoarse former president said, following some local favorites, the Dave Matthews Band, at the rally in suburban Washington. 

NBC Politics coverage of the 2012 campaign:

• Uncertain finale looms amid weekend campaign blitz
• Romney implores Colorado for 'one last push'
• Biden zings Romney in Colorado
• Ryan travels to Pennsylvania, trying to put state in play
• Obama plays up 'trust' in battleground Ohio
• Obama aide explains 'voting is best revenge' comment
• Ryan: 'We believe in change and hope'
• Romney strikes optimistic tone as final weekend opens
• Polls: Obama stays ahead in Ohio, deadlocked with Romney in Fla.
• GOP's chances at Senate imperiled by self-inflicted wounds

Both Obama and Romney spent the day criss-crossing the United States to make a firmly centrist appeal, each of them trying to sound upbeat as the clock counts down on Election 2012. Each candidate drew thousands — sometimes tens of thousands — of supporters to rallies in Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa, Virginia, Ohio and beyond. And each candidate argued he was the one who could break through the gridlock in a Congress beset for the past two years by bitter partisan fights.

"You know that if the president is re-elected, he'll still be unable to work with the people in Congress," Romney told a sprawling crowd in Colorado. "He's ignored them. He's blamed them. He's attacked them."

Romney spent much of the campaign's final weekend arguing he was the candidate of "change," co-opting Obama's 2008 message to use four years later against the president. 

Whether the Republican candidate's claim to to the mantle of change would resonate with a handful of remaining swing voters in just a few battleground states was unclear. Obama seemed to enjoy an edge in states like Iowa, leading Romney by five points among likely voters, according to the Des Moines Register's final poll. But a WMUR poll of New Hampshire also found the president and Romney tied, at 47 percent, in another battleground state: New Hampshire. 

That neither Obama or Romney had managed to open a solid advantage over the other in the final hours of the campaign only raised the stakes for the final series of events on Sunday and Monday. Both Obama and Romney — along with Vice President Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan — were set to hit the road for another robust schedule tomorrow. Obama was set to travel to Colorado, Florida, and New Hampshire; Romney's schedule would take him to Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

DOSWELL, VA -- Once again throttling back on his most vociferous attacks on President Barack Obama, Mitt Romney continued his effort to paint the president as a partisan without a plan, and pledged to work across the aisle with Democrats if elected president in his second event of a three-stop Virginia campaign day.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets supporters at a campaign stop at Meadow Event Park, in Richmond, Va., Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012.

"I'm going to meet regularly with Democrat leaders and Republican leaders. I won't do that once a year, when I say regularly I mean much more frequently than that, because we're going to have to work together," Romney pledged. "These are critical times. This is an election of consequence." 

Democrats immediately seized on the irony of Romney delivering these remarks while standing next to House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., whom Democrats have long accused of using his power in the House to act as one of the "chief architects" of GOP obstruction to President Obama's agenda.

“For the sole purpose of political gain, congressman Cantor and Republicans in Congress, like Romney’s running mate congressman Ryan, have blocked efforts to achieve a balanced deficit reduction deal and to pass legislation to create jobs now," read a statement from Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith. "The American people need someone who will move us forward, not just serve as a rubber stamp for the right wing.”

Romney, who has dialed down his criticisms of President Obama in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and as the campaigns move into the closing argument phase, continued to ding the president for what he said was a lack of an agenda and a campaign based upon attacks alone.

"For a while there he was talking about saving characters on Sesame Street, and then it was word games with my name that he was playing, and then of course he got very anxious and went out there and just attacked me day in and day out," Romney said. "Attacking me does not create an agenda for him."

Romney makes one more appearance in Virginia today: a rally in Virginia Beach that was originally planned for Sunday night, but had to be rescheduled due to the approach of Hurricane Sandy.