MADISON, WIS. -- Mitt Romney made a serious play here – not surprising, given his running mate was a native son and the state recently re-affirmed its support of its Republican governor in a recall election. 

But despite the Paul Ryan appearances and the millions spent in third-party ads, the state still proved elusive – one reason, perhaps, that became apparent just hours after polls closed in that contentious June recall.

Related: Romney never overcame bailout opposition

Of the 53 percent of voters who supported Gov. Scott Walker over Tom Barrett, who opposed the governor’s curbs on collective bargaining, 18 percent said they’d still vote for President Barack Obama over Romney.

And that was among the 2.5 million people that voted in the recall – half a million less than voted Tuesday for president. 

“Even if the electorate didn’t grow at all, Republicans needed to worry,” University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor Barry Burden said, “because that’s enough of a flip to make the state go for Obama.” 

In a state where voters take pride in voting for the person, not the party, Burden said that some voters felt similarly about Obama and Walker. 

“They’re both incumbents, they’re both presiding over a kind of mediocre economy... But in both cases, voters are willing to give the incumbent credit and give them time to finish the job,” Burden said. 

Plus, the fact that the Obama campaign turned out the voters they needed to put them over the edge, even if the resulting 53-46 percent result was far less than Obama’s 14-point margin in 2008. 

In the important blue counties of Racine and Milwaukee, Obama got 51.4 percent and 67 percent of the vote respectively. As with elsewhere in the country, demographics were a key part of his victories there: Milwaukee County’s population is 27 percent African American, versus 6.5 percent of people statewide; Racine's is 11.5 percent. 

Steven Senne / AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets people during a campaign stop at a Cousins Subs fast food restaurant, in Waukesha, Wis., Tuesday, April 3, 2012.

But while Obama won decisively here, Republicans said they are far from ready to cede this perennial purple state to the Democrats. 

“I think we have a fantastic ground game and we’ll continue to grow,” said Wisconsin Republican party spokesman Nathan Conrad. 

Republicans did win the super-swingy Brown County, which voted Obama in 2008, Walker for governor in 2010 and 2012, and gave Romney a narrow 50.4- 48.5 percent win Tuesday night. Green Bay, located in Brown County’s Fox Valley, is a particularly important bellwether, given its high concentration of white male working-class voters who frequently swing between parties. 

But the margins there were meaningful – smaller than they had to be in order for Walker to win, some Republicans conceded. 

Another bright spot for Republicans in Wisconsin was in the statehouse - Wednesday morning Scott Walker was quick to note that his party eked out a new 17-15 majority in the state Senate, the body’s third party switch in two years after it went to the Democrats during the recall. 

“What that tells me is that voters in this state are independent. They listen race by race to what the candidates have to offer,” Walker said to reporters Wednesday in Milwaukee.

And that is one of the reasons this state will continue to be a key battleground in future presidential races, Burden, the University of Wisconsin professor, said. 

“It’s just volatile enough and has just enough electoral votes that neither party really wants to walk away from it,” he said. 

JANESVILLE, Wisc. -- With just a few hours to go before polls close and the 2012 election draws to a close, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan is optimistic Mitt Romney will become the next president of the United States.

Eric Thayer / Reuters

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and his wife Janna vote during the U.S. Presidential election accompanied by their children Charlie, Sam and Liza in Janesville, Wisconsin November 6, 2012.

Asked if the GOP ticket would win Tuesday, Ryan told reporters after casting his ballot: "I think we are, I feel good about it."
The Wisconsin congressman and his wife, Janna, voted at the Hedberg Library in their hometown of Janesville. Ryan’s three children -- Liza, Charlie, and Sam -- joined their parents as well.

Who did Ryan vote for?

"It'll be suspenseful," the congressman, wearing a suit, joked with reporters as he walked into the library.

"It felt good waking up in my hometown,” Ryan said after submitting his ballot. “It felt good coming to this neighborhood I grew up in. I went to junior high about 60 yards that way. So it’s great to be here in my hometown. It’s great to vote and we’re really excited."

Ryan will head to the battleground states of Ohio and Virginia before heading to the election night party in Boston this evening.

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.

MADISON, WI – Kicking off his last full day of campaigning here, President Barack Obama enlisted rocker Bruce Springsteen to motivate supporters who have already voted and those who will head to the polls Tuesday.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

President Barack Obama and rocker Bruce Springsteen wave to a crowd of 18,000 people during a rally on the last day of campaigning in the general election November 5, 2012 in Madison, Wis.

Taking the stage just after Springsteen finished an acoustic set, the president touted the fact that Springsteen will be hitching a ride on the presidential aircraft from Madison to the next campaign stop in Columbus, Ohio.

“I get to fly around with him on the last day that I will ever campaign. So that's not a bad way to end things,” he told the crowd of 18,000 gathered in a square near the state capitol, which was festooned with a giant American flag.

But Obama also used the rock star’s appearance to drive home a serious message about one of his signature agenda items: allowing the lower Bush-era tax rates for the wealthiest Americans expire.

“If we’re serious about the deficit, we can’t just cut our way to prosperity,” Obama said. “We’ve also got to ask the wealthiest Americans to go back to the tax rates they paid when Bill Clinton was in office. And by the way, we can afford it. I haven’t talked to Bruce, but he can afford it. I can afford it. Mr. Romney, he can afford it.”

In 2008, Springsteen’s appearances on behalf of the president underscored Obama’s image as a transformational figure of inspiration. But even The Boss acknowledged during his performance that despite his four years in office, the environment in Washington had not changed.

“President Obama ran last time as a man of hope and change, and you hear a lot of talk about things are different,” Springsteen said.

“Things aren’t any different now. They’re just realer. It’s crunch time now,” he continued.

After the rally, the president and Springsteen boarded Air Force One together to head to Columbus for another joint appearance. 

GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Sundays in the fall mean football. And, on this final Sunday before Election Day, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan went tailgating in the battleground state of Wisconsin.

Ryan, in the shadow of Lambeau Field, chatted with friends, family, and voters just a couple hours before his beloved Green Bay Packers kicked off against their division rivals, the Arizona Cardinals.

Sporting a Packers jacket and tie, the seven-term Wisconsin congressman, joined by two of Mitt Romney’s sons, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and Sen. Ron Johnson, even played a quick game of cornhole with his kids and a few Romney grandkids.

"You have to have your cheese on your head,” Ryan said to the kids while playing cornhole.

This is not Ryan’s first tailgate on the campaign trail. He has attended at least two others throughout the country.

"The only problem is that I don't have tickets for the game," Ryan, who owns a share of Packers stock, joked to a fan.

Sunday’s outing marked Ryan’s second time in the Lambeau Field vicinity since being tapped as Romney’s running mate on Aug. 11. He was last at the popular venue in early September when he taped a handful of television interviews.

The GOP ticket is still behind in the Badger State. The NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll from Oct. 18 shows President Obama ahead of Romney, 51 percent to 45 percent. The six-point lead is, however, in the poll's margin of error. Wisconsin will award 10 electoral votes.

The Fox Valley area, which Green Bay is part of, is the quintessential battleground region of Wisconsin, which could explain why Ryan visited the area again just two days before Election Day.

Ryan will head back to Wisconsin Monday night when he holds his final campaign rally before the Nov. 6 election in Milwaukee.

Updated at 5:50pmET: A rapidly-approaching conclusion loomed over the 2012 election on Saturday, as President Barack Obama, Republican nominee Mitt Romney, their running mates and surrogates swarmed a series of battleground states to make their closing messages.

Obama and Romney each employed a mixture of uplifting, forward-looking rhetoric with attacks on the other during a whirlwind tour of battleground states set to decide the election on Tuesday.

 Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Looking for a catalyzing moment to push past Obama in those swing states, Romney opted to play up the president's comments Friday at a rally, at which he urged supporters to vote as a means of seeking "revenge" against Republicans.

"Yesterday the president said something you may have heard by now that I think surprised a lot of people. Speaking to an audience, he said you know voting is the best 'revenge,'" Romney said. "He told his supporters, voting for revenge. Vote for revenge? Let me tell you what I’d like to tell you: Vote for love of country."

The Obama campaign, in response Saturday afternoon, called the line of attack "very small."

"I think it's interesting that that's the closing argument that the Romney campaign is making," said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Related: Obama aide explains 'voting is best revenge' comment

The remarks were consistent with Romney's effort to project momentum heading into the campaign's final weekend, riding high after drawing the largest crowd of its campaign at a Friday night rally in Ohio. The Republican ticket has essentially tried to co-opt the themes of "change" from Obama's 2008 campaign as its closing argument now against the president.

But the Romney campaign's outward optimism clashed with new polls giving Obama an ever-so-slight edge in pivotal swing states. New NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls showed Romney trailing Obama by six points among likely voters in Ohio, and by two points in Florida.

 Related: Polls: Obama stays ahead in Ohio, deadlocked with Romney in Fla.

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's trip Saturday afternoon to Pennsylvania, a state which the GOP has only contended in the final days of the campaign, was emblematic of the campaigns' dueling perspectives toward the campaign. The Romney campaign argued it was a sign of surging momentum while the Obama campaign cast the trip as an act of desperation — a Hail Mary effort driven by foreclosed opportunities in other battleground states. (Romney will stop in Pennsylvania on Sunday.)

While the outcome on Election Day is far from assured, a certain wistfulness set in as Obama looked back at his four years in office. He argued his experience as president showed he was someone whom voters could trust, meaning to imply as well that Romney wasn't.

"When you elect a president, you don’t know what kinds of emergencies may happen. You don’t know what problems he or she may deal with," he said. "But you want to be able to trust your president."

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In this composite photo: President Barack Obama points while speaking at a campaign event at Mentor High School in Ohio, and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa November 3, 2012.  

And amid the late-breaking attack by Romney meant to cast Obama as embittered, the president told a crowd in Mentor, Ohio: "I don't feel cynical. I feel hopeful."

There were signs that awareness of the campaign's approaching horizon had set in among the Romney campaign as well.

"It was very emotional when I gave my last address by myself, because I hear the voices and the passion of the people out there that are really hurting, and they are etched in my mind and my heart, as they are with Mitt," Ann Romney told the press corps traveling with her husband. "It's been an extraordinary experience."

 Recommended: Ryan travels to Pennsylvania, trying to put state in play

The full range of reflection would have to wait, though, until Wednesday. Obama and Romney — along with their running mates, Vice President Joe Biden and Ryan — each have a long list of stops ahead of them during the remainder of Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Their efforts are met by hoards of Democratic and Republican surrogates, who fanned out across the country as part of a frenzied effort in hopes of  adding a few more swing states to their candidate's column on Tuesday. 

WEST ALLIS, WI-- Mitt Romney returned to Wisconsin today for the first time since August, delivering his closing argument speech in a state where Republicans hope they can manage a chink in the President Barack Obama's Midwestern armor.

Romney received a raucous welcome from an overflow crowd of 4,000 Wisconsinites chanting "four more days" this morning, welcoming the Republican presidential nominee with some of the loudest support Romney has won since returning to a full campaign schedule in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

"What a great state. What a great welcome, and by the way this state is going to help me become the next president of the United States," Romney said, taking the stage following an introduction from the state's once-embattled Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

"I want to thank you for all that you've done and all you're going to do in the next four days and I want to tell you how much I appreciate being in the home of the next vice president of the United States," Romney said moments later, referring to his running mate Paul Ryan, who was born and raised in nearby Janesville, Wisc.

Recommended: Democrats face very steep climb to 25 House seats they need

For the Romney campaign, the presence of a native son of the Badger state on the ticket, along with Walker's strong performance in this summer's failed recall effort, highlight an opportunity to solve a vexing problem -- how to break through Obama's Midwestern firewall.

"They woke a sleeping giant here I would say during the recall," Milwaukee business owner Frank Orlando told NBC News, adding that he was volunteering for a political campaign -- Romney's -- for the first time in his life. He added that half the volunteers he works with are also engaging in politics directly for the first time that cycle.

"We love Paul Ryan," said Grace Lococo, another event attendee from Milwaukee. "We grew up following him."

Romney aides say they see that type of familiarity and enthusiasm as emblematic of a blue state ripe for flipping.

"We see Republican gains in Wisconsin for the past few cycles and we believe its an excellent opportunity for a Romney pickup," Romney spokesperson Rick Gorka said.

Related: Obama slams Romney for Jeep ad in Ohio

Recent polling lends some credence to that theory. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released earlier this week showed Romney cutting Obama's lead in Wisconsin down to three points -- 49 to 46 percent -- half of what it had been a month prior and within the poll's margin of error.

With the president under the 50 percent threshold, Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes could help Romney succeed on Tuesday should he fail to break through in the race's most critical battlefield of Ohio, where he'll campaign the rest of the day Friday, and return later in the weekend.

For the Romney campaign, Wisconsin has already proven decisive once. The state's primary in April, which Romney won handily, was the last truly competitive contest between Romney and Rick Santorum, and helped wrap up the contentious GOP primary race later that month.

Updated 2:35 p.m. ET -- Four days before voters head to the polls, President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney sought to bring their different economic visions into sharp relief before throngs of Midwestern voters who could decide the election.

Romney, who delivered on Friday what he said was the “closing argument” of his campaign, said the economy was hopelessly mired in stagnation under Obama, and promised to deliver “real change” if elected.

Jim Young / Reuters

Supporters of Mitt Romney gesture at a campaign rally in West Allis, Wis., Nov. 2, 2012.

Obama pointed to green shoots of economic recovery while barnstorming battleground Ohio, accusing his Republican opponent of deception on the question of change, as well as the 2009 auto industry rescue that could swing the outcome of the election.

Romney started the day with a speech in the battleground state of Wisconsin, assailing Obama for having failed at his promise to change Washington; Romney said his experience in the private sector and as governor of Massachusetts has shown he can boost the economy and bridge partisan divides that have grinded lawmaking in the nation’s capital to a virtual halt.

“The question of this election comes down to this: do you want more of the same or do you want real change?” Romney asked. “President Obama promised change, but he could not deliver it. I promise change, and I have a record of achieving it.”

A robust campaign schedule for Obama and Romney, along with their running mates, brought the campaign back to its central issue -- jobs and the economy -- just as a key monthly employment report showed that the U.S. added more jobs than expected in October. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that the economy added 171,000 jobs last month -- though the unemployment rate inched upward to 7.9 percent as the size of the American workforce grew.

Check out the NBC News' Election Briefing Book

“This morning we learned that companies hired more workers in October than at any time in the last eight months,” Obama said at a Friday rally in Ohio. “We've made real progress, but we are here today because we know we've got more work to do. As long as there's a single American who wants a job but can't find one ... our fight goes on.”

The stasis in campaigning that set in following the landfall of Hurricane Sandy earlier this week had all but faded Friday, as both campaigns resumed their full-throated critiques of one another.

Romney sought to wrest the mantle of “change” away from Obama, continuing on a theme he has stressed in recent weeks, and going so far as warning on Friday that if the U.S. doesn't change course, it could risk slipping back into recession.

Obama has long blamed Republican obstructionism and special interests for impeding his agenda, and thereby, the pace of economic recovery.

Romney, who made his first stop in Wisconsin since naming Paul Ryan, a congressman from the state, as his running mate, suggested his experience as governor of Massachusetts and a former private equity executive would help him succeed where Obama had failed.

Jobs data unlikely to sway undecided voters

"I have watched over these last few months as our campaign has gathered the strength of a movement," Romney said. "I will reach out to both sides of the aisle. I will bring people together, doing big things for the common good. I won’t just represent one party, I’ll represent one nation. I’ll try to show the best of America, at a time when only our best will do."

Romney traveled next to Ohio, where he would join Obama in courting the vote of the Buckeye State -- a pivotal Midwestern battleground where the outcome could determine the winner of the Electoral College.

There, the president upbraided Romney on the notion that the Republican nominee could deliver change, ridiculing the GOP nominee’s proposals as little more than warmed-over leftovers from the Bush administration.

“We know what the right choice is, but let's face it, Gov. Romney is a talented salesman,” he said, accusing his Republican opponent of repackaging tired GOP ideas. “We know what change looks like, and what the governor's offering ain't it.”

The Obama campaign has relied on Ohio to serve as a kind of “firewall” for the president, concentrating for months on building an advantage over Romney in hopes of impeding the GOP candidate’s path to 270 electoral votes. Obama has led Romney by a slim, but consistent, margin in most public polls, prompting the Republican ticket to ratchet up its attacks on the administration’s handling of the auto industry bailout.

Romney’s offensive includes a series of new ads taking aim at the president on the issue of the auto industry bailout, stoking (incorrect) fears that Jeep would move production and jobs from the U.S. to China.

First Thoughts: A status-quo election?

Those suggestions earned him a strong rebuke from both the president, as well as Vice President Biden, who campaigned in Wisconsin, a state that has reliably supported Democrats in recent presidential cycles.

"Everyone knows it’s not true. The car companies themselves have told Gov. Romney to knock it off," Obama said of the ads, accusing Romney of trying to scare the state’s autoworkers. "You don’t scare hardworking Americans just to scare up some votes. That’s not what being president is all about. That’s not leadership."

Biden, speaking in Beloit, went a step further: “In the last hours of this campaign, Romney and Ryan have become truly desperate. Romney will say anything to win.”

But Republicans returned to the issue of employment, arguing Friday that the employment situation had scarcely improved over the last four years, and hardly matched the White House’s projections upon selling its stimulus package in January of 2009. That, they said, justified Obama’s expulsion from office.

“In the president’s campaign for another term, he has offered nothing different and if he is re-elected, nothing different is exactly what we would get,” Ryan said at a rally in Colorado. “And we are not going to let him get away with that are we?”

Updated 2:58 p.m. - Campaigning for the first time since Hurricane Sandy hit the East Coast, President Barack Obama began the final sprint to Election Day in Wisconsin, where he mocked Gov. Mitt Romney’s calling himself the candidate of “big change” while seeking to reclaim that moniker for himself.

While Obama had refrained from politicking since the storm made landfall earlier this week, he dove right back into heated rhetoric, saying Romney is being deceptive in his efforts to recast himself as a reformer.

“In the closing weeks of this campaign, Governor Romney has been using all his talents as a salesman to dress up these very same policies that failed our country so badly,” Obama said.

“And he is offering them up as change. He's saying he's the candidate of change,” Obama continued, as 2,600 supporters at the Austin Straubel airport laughed. “Well, let me tell you, Wisconsin, we know what change looks like. And what the governor's offering sure ain't change."

But even as Obama skewered his opponent, he also highlighted his own efforts at bipartisanship, noting instances when he worked across the aisle in Washington.

“Sometimes Republicans in Congress have worked with me to meet our goals, to cut taxes for small businesses and families like yours, to open new markets for American goods or finally repeal ‘Don't ask, Don't tell,’” he said, adding, however, that sometimes he’s had “big fights” with Republicans that “were worth having.”

Jewel Samad / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama greets supporters during a campaign rally at Austin Straubel International Airport in Green Bay, Wis., on Nov. 1, 2012.

“I didn't fight those fights for any partisan advantage. I've shown my willingness to work with anybody of any party to move this country forward,” he continued.

The Romney campaign countered Obama's event with a  statement from spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg, which read in part, "We've said all along this election is a choice between the status quo and real change - change that offers promise that the future will be better than the past. President Obama's misguided policies and broken promises have let down millions of Americans, and we can't afford four more years like the last four."

After his Green Bay event, the president headed to Las Vegas, Nevada for another rally.

RACINE, WI – Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan joined the GOP offensive against the 2009 auto bailout engineered by President Barack Obama, arguing the rescue of GM and Chrysler hardly constitutes the success story the administration claims.

"Everybody wants a strong and vibrant auto sector. We want a strong manufacturing sector. But today you might have heard that Joe Biden again was at it again. Today he was talking about the government bailout, which they keep touting as an unqualified success story,” Ryan said, citing two plants in his home state of Wisconsin where production was halted following the bailout.

"The facts, they speak for themselves. President Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy, taxpayers still stand to lose $25 billion dollars in the president's politically managed bankruptcy," Ryan said. "These companies, Chrysler in particular we know this story, are now choosing to expand manufacturing overseas. These are the facts. Those facts are inconvenient for the president but no one disputes them. The president and the vice president, the problem is they simply can't defend their record."

Ryan's language adds to a late-in-the-campaign effort by the Republican to counter the president's record on the auto industry, which Obama and Vice President Joe Biden has used to great effect against Romney and Ryan in a series of battleground states where the auto industry looms large.

The auto bailouts have become a topic of major discussion as the Romney campaign launched a series of ads in Ohio that erroneously suggested Jeep was looking to shift production from the U.S. to China, earning the Republican campaign a rebuke from GM and Chrysler's corporate leadership.

The fact that Ryan had supported the bailout during its earliest stages -- in late 2008, when loans to the troubled automakers were initiated by President George W. Bush -- has further complicated the Wisconsin congressman's efforts to attack the bailout as executed by Obama.

The support for auto companies initiated by Bush was different from the support provided by Obama, who used funding from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to prop up GM and Chrysler and give the government an equity stake in both companies.

Ryan, like many Republicans, has focused on the suppliers, pensioners and dealerships who feel that they were shortchanged during the bankruptcy process, to the benefit of autoworkers' unions.

The Obama campaign has fought back aggressively on the issue, as Biden, speaking Wednesday in Florida, called Romney's Jeep ad an “outrageous lie” and made out of “desperation.”

“In the last hours of this campaign, if you can believe it, they're running the most scurrilous ads in Ohio ... one of the most flagrantly dishonest ads I can ever remember in my political career. In the ad they're running in Ohio, they assert that President Obama forced Chrysler into bankruptcy,” Biden said, noting the ad claimed Obama allowed Chrysler to move Jeep operations to China. ”That's what the ad says. It's an outrageous lie.”
 
"All my time I have never heard an American corporation in the waning hours of the campaign engage with that kind of description of what a presidential candidate's doing," Biden said after quoting a General Motors statement calling the Romney ad "campaign politics at its cynical worst."

Obama re-election campaign spokesman Danny Kanner added in response to the claims made by the Wisconsin congressman: "Ryan was forced to do Mitt Romney’s dirty work in Wisconsin today – telling blatant falsehoods about the auto rescue in a desperate attempt to salvage their campaign. But the American people aren’t going to buy it. When the American auto industry and more than one million workers’ jobs were on the line, President Obama stepped up and Mitt Romney turned his back."