(AP) – Gunning for the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the White House, Democrat Barack Obama is almost exclusively targeting tossup red states, the label for ones that trend Republican. Any one of them might tip him to victory. Combined, they could give him a dominant win. Meanwhile, ahead in the polls, Obama spends little time at all defending Democratic blue states except for one – Pennsylvania – where Republican John McCain is pushing hard. The political math explains Obama’s plans on Tuesday, just one week shy of the election.
Obama was to begin with a rally in the Philadelphia suburb of Chester. The event amounts to a bookend to his cross-state appearance on Monday in Pittsburgh, when he pledged to cut taxes for the middle class and help the factory worker as much as the company owner. Obama then heads again to Virginia, where he is vying to become the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state in 44 years.
