The rival campaigns of US President George W. Bush and Democrat Senator John Kerry hit the Southwest on Monday, where they were to face off in their final televised debate in two days, with polls showing the race still too close to call.
Kerry accused Bush of breaking a pledge to make OPEC hike oil production, and vowed to wean US consumers off Middle East oil, while Bush attacked Kerry on Iraq.
"I want America's energy future, I want America's security to be in the hands of Americans and in our own ingenuity, our own innovation not the Saudi royal family or others around the world," Kerry said in this New Mexico city, pointing to record oil prices.
Bush continued to assail Kerry's position on Iraq as he campaigned in Hobbs, a small town on New Mexico's border with Texas, where the president owns a ranch.
"With a straight face, he said he had only one position on Iraq. He must think we're on another planet," Bush said.
Their campaigns swung through the southwestern US as both men geared for a final debate in the city of Tempe, Arizona that will focus on domestic issues after two rounds of fireworks on Iraq.
National polls split over who was leading the US presidential race, but Kerry showed signs of making headway against Bush in the decisive state-by-state battle.
A Washington Post/ABC News tracking poll three weeks before the Nov. 2 ballot put Bush on top 51 to 46 percent and a survey by the Rasmussen organization gave the Republican a four-point margin at 49.5 to 45.5 percent.
But a tracking poll by the Zogby International group showed Kerry, the four-term senator from Massachusetts, with a three-point edge at 47-44 percent heading into the final stretch of an acrimonious, marathon campaign.
A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll gave Kerry a 49 to 48 percent lead over Bush among likely voters, while a poll in mid-September had given Bush a 54 to 40 percent edge.
The conflicting results highlighted a race still close to call and which shows every indication of careening to the same cliffhanger finish as four years ago when the outcome hinged on a bitter recount in the state of Florida.
"This is so much like 2000 it's scary," pollster John Zogby wrote in a commentary on his survey Sunday. "There is a lot of campaigning to go. Remember that in 2000 the lead changed several times in October."
Kerry pulled even with Bush on the strength of a commanding performance over the Republican president in their first televised debate on Sept. 30. A second encounter last week was judged a tie and a third is scheduled for today.
The Democrat's most significant gains, several analysts and commentators said, were in a string of so-called battleground states that will decide the presidency on the particular US system of electoral votes.
The winner needs a majority of the 538 electoral votes apportioned among the states and earned in separate, mostly winner-take-all contests.
Bush won in 2000 by five electoral votes while losing the popular tally to vice president Al Gore by more than half a million votes, and the electoral chessboard looked every bit as tight this year.
The president seemed assured of at least 206 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House, while Kerry had 214, according to an AFP analysis of various state polls.
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