Independents' Day: Will Ohio electorate look the way it did in '08?

>> in every swing state poll. every swing state poll.

>> let's take a look. we're 24 hours away from the election. can you guys believe this?

>> thank god.

>> new polling offering a snapshot to just how close this race is. in a general election matchup of likely voters, three major polls all have it as a statistical tie.

>> look at that. it's crazy.

>> according to the nbc news/" wall street journal " survey, president obama holds a slim 48-47 lead. the same toll taken eight years ago strikingly similar. incumbent president george w. bush held the same 48-47% lead over senator kerry the day before the election. in battleground states including colorado , ohio , virginia , florida and new hampshire , president obama has a slight advantage. he leads romney 50%-46%. when asked which candidate is best to improve the economy, romney leads by the president by five points. that's a closer margin than it was in mid-october. however, when asked which candidate is best for the middle class , the president has a double-digit lead. 51%-40%. there's also good news for obama on his handling of hurricane sandy. 67% say they approve of the way the president dealt with the disaster last week. that's pretty big.

>> that's showing up in the national polls, mika .

>> yeah.

>> i think it's also showing up in the battleground state polls.

>> yeah.

>> where you have people who weren't affected by the storm but who saw the president's handling of the storm and standing there with chris christie .

>> they were watching the coverage.

>> one of the two iconic moments of this campaign.

>> that's an interesting symbol to get back to at one point. but back to the battlegrounds where tomorrow's election will ultimately be decided, iowa , the latest " des moines register " poll has president obama with a fi five-point lead over mitt romney .

>> go back to that one for one second.

>> go back to iowa .

>> the iowa polls, of all the polls that are out, this is the only poll where romney people have shown despair. they don't believe a lot of the ohio polls. this one really surprised them this weekend. they really believed they were going to win iowa . i don't know if they believe that at this point.

>> look at florida . romney has the advantage, polling six points ahead in a new " tampa bay times "/" miami herald " poll. new hampshire , a wmur has the race all tied up at 47%-47%. the race is also tied in pennsylvania according to a "tribune-review" poll, pennsylvania hasn't gone republican since 1988 .

>> mark halperin , this came out yesterday. democrats say this is a republican-leaning poll, and also it's outside -- is this an outlier, or is this the direction we're going?

>> there really hasn't been enough polling there. again, pennsylvania is a weird state. there's no early voting . there's been only late advertising there. governor romney did a late-night event last night that was pretty big. i agree with mike. it seems unlikely that romney will win this. if he does, i think he'll iwin in a landslide. bill clinton 's spending the day there. and he is a big asset.

>> i think the obama people are confident in other swing states for the reason they may be a little scared in pennsylvania right now because no early voting . there's been no campaigning there. they didn't rip mitt romney to shreds like they said they were going to do to john heilemann back in may when they said we're going to tear him from limb to limb, which they did in ohio . they didn't in pennsylvania . so pennsylvania is one state, mika , that is controlled. and virginia , the latest nbc poll has the president up by one point. if i'm mitt romney 's team, willie , that concerns me a lot. he should be up by a couple points.

>> and take a look at ohio . the president holds a two-point lead according to a " columbus dispatch " poll leading 50%-48%. also, "the denver post " finds the president leading mitt romney , 47%-45%.

>> another reason to be disturbed. right now, willie , mitt romney should be ahead in colorado . he should be ahead -- i'm just saying, he should be ahead in colorado , in virginia . he should be ahead in north carolina . he should be ahead in florida . he is according to "the miami herald " poll. virginia and colorado are two states that really give me pause for the romney camp.

>> especially virginia . let's pause for a moment and appreciate how close this race is. we just went through about ten polls all either tied or within the margin of error.

>> today, 24 hours to go, you can look at the polls. it's okay.

>> they matter.

>> i would ask you, mark, about ohio . we've sat here for weeks and said this is really going to come down to ohio . that poll was two points. the president has had some polls over the last week that showed him with a bigger lead. where are you hearing this race is right now?

>> it depends. where can republicans look for hope, a lot of these polls the president's ahead, but governor romney 's doing well with independents. and whoever wins independents in ohio 's going to win, probably. almost certainly. and i think that the president has --

>> wait, let me stop you there. let me stop you there.

>> yeah.

>> because every republican i've talked to that knows how to run campaigns, they say if you win independents by five or six points, you win ohio . in every single race. and yet they're up in a lot of polls by double digits among independents. and they're losing ohio . this is what's driving republicans mad. they see this huge win among independents, but they're still losing. explain that.

>> well, it depends how you model the electorate. one of the numbers i've been watching of late after the denver debate was more people think the president -- how many more people think the president's going to win? i don't think there's been a poll yet i've seen where more people think governor romney 's going to win. but the gap has narrowed. it's moved back a little bit in general since the storm . but governor romney , i think, is where he needs to be. in terms of the psychology. you want to go into the last weekend and election day where people are thinking you can win. you don't want anyone to think it's over because people want to vote for the winner. the independent number is one thing that republicans have gotten out there and talked a lot about. and i can't get my arms around it completely. i do know that if the electorate is a lot like the 2008 electorate, the president's going to win over romney .

>> the president wins.

>> that's not going to happen. if you look at ohio , elected kasich and portman, pennsylvania republicaned toomey. wisconsin elected and kept in office scott walker in the last two years. there's a lot of reasons to think the electorate is going to be somewhat different and maybe substantially different than four years ago.

>> speaking of ohio , willie , chuck todd is going through, an nbc /marist poll had the president ahead by six. but then he changed the model to be a split between '08 and '04 and suddenly it's a three-point race. you have a cnn poll that has ohio as a three-point race, " columbus dispatch " is a two-point race. i've got to say right now as a practicing politician of 20 years, if i'm betting, i'm betting on the president because every poll's lined up for the president. that said, you think about 18 -- 1980 where every elite in washington and manhattan was sure jimmy carter was going to win. i don't care what they say now. look at frank reynolds saying what the hell is going on on the election night ? nobody saw the reagan revolution coming. nobody saw it coming. let me say it again, revisionist, nobody saw it coming. and then i remember walking on set in 2004 , and everybody -- not only at this network, at nbc , abc, cbs, in boston, in austin, all talking about president kerry. that was two hours before the polls closed.

>> bob shrum .

>> everybody knew that john kerry had won the race. everybody. let me repeat. everybody. two hours before. and then we all remembered what happened in new hampshire when everybody was dancing on hillary clinton 's grave.

>> oh, my god.

>> the day of the new hampshire primary.

>> let's look at primary crowds.

>> mika and i, we're at a nashua gym and saw hillary up there speaking.

>> they were, like, bringing people in from out of state.

>> everybody came in from massachusetts. and i said, you know, she deserves a better ending than this. and yet, you never know until americans go into the voting booth and vote.

>> well, i recall in new hampshire in february of 2008 being in the lobby of the holiday inn with you and telling you that i had just bumped into lou dellesandrou who was running hillary's campaign.

>> and everybody laughed.

>> everybody did laugh. that gets to the ultimate magic and mystery that is election day . that we can sit here and blather on forever about what has happened and what is about to happen. we can look at two campaigns that have spent a total of $2 billion.

>> amazing.

>> on ads and all the magic.

>> you have a senate campaign? where someone spent $100 million.

>> tomorrow people go and vote.

>> and tomorrow --

>> and we don't know what's going to happen.

>> -- people make the decision and we don't know what's going to happen. and i remember falling in love with politics, reading the making of the president in 1960 , and you look at teddy white 's opening lines about the magic of american democracy starting quietly as the snow falls. well, guess what? that was 52 years ago. it's going to happen again tomorrow.

>> and still a ground game that does it.

>> it's not just the presidency, it's control of the senate. it's the entire dynamic for the next four years that will be decided in the next 24 hours . hopefully.

>> let's hope. i don't want a recount. i've done that.

>> what about notre dame .

>> been there, done that.

>> triple overtime.

>> okay. all right.

>> i am praying we get them to the national championship . seriously. that will be fun.

>> remember, it's boss lady.

>>> ahead this morning, we're going to bring in senator john mccain , former senior adviser to mccain's 2008 presidential campaign , steve schmidt. also nbc news political director, chuck todd . and obama deputy campaign manager , stephanie cutter . up next, mike allen with the top stories in the "politico playbook." but first, let's go outside to democracy plaza, bill karins is there with a check on the forecast. bill.

>> good monday morning, everyone. we've got an election day forecast, we've got a nor'easter coming. of course, we're recovering from sandy. this is a beautiful scene behind me. thankfully that big storm won't be here till wednesday and thursday. of course, the ice rink behind p prometheus. 207 will be the magic number . we'll announce what state wins what throughout tuesday night. let me take you to the forecast. first off, 2 million people still don't have power. this is the coldest morning yet of this fall season. so hopefully everyone's in shelters or family and friends because it's very chilly to try to ride this one out in your house waiting for power. the next storm is already on the way. today it is diving down through the middle of the country with showers and rain. today we're going to call for a forecast with rain down along the gulf coast . that's about it. it's a nice monday. your gets interesting. the storm rounds the bend in the southeast. a little bit of rain in georgia, south carolina for election day . really shouldn't affect the turnout. and then finally the nor'easter part of the forecast, that's when the storm is going to be up here along the new england coast. we're going to see some minor coastal damage, additional power outages and some inland heavy snow. this is the least thing we needed. it won't even be a quarter of sandy, but it's just not what we needed. you're watching " morning joe ." we're brewed by starbucks. if you think