National polls and those taken in battleground states showed the bitter White House rivals in a virtual tie 24 hours before Americans choose their leader for the next four years. Both planned exhausting campaign marathons to key swing states during the final run-up to Election Day.

Bush began a 16-hour sweep through Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Iowa and New Mexico before ending the day with a rally in Texas.

Kerry planned his own 16-hour extravaganza, rolling through Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, then doubling back for second stops in Ohio and Wisconsin.

Americans will also decide which party holds power in Congress and vote on governorships in 11 states today, with Bush?s Republicans favored to retain control of both the Senate and House of Representatives.

More than 100 million Americans, and perhaps as many as 120 million to 125 million, are expected to cast ballots. The size of the turnout could be critical in determining which candidate gets the 270 electoral votes needed to win, and has made an unpredictable race even harder to forecast.

<B>Marathon campaigning</B>

Before they entrust the campaign to get-out-the-vote efforts today, both candidates planned a final day of rallies to fire up supporters and reach out to the small band of undecided voters ? as low as 2 to 3 percent in some polls ? that could decide the race.

Speaking to reporters at Pittsburgh International Airport ahead of a rally in Burgettstown, Pennsylvania, Bush said he was ?energized? in the marathon stretch to the finish.

?I?m confident we?re going to win,? said Bush, adding: ?The finish line is in sight and I just want to assure you I?ve got the energy and the optimism and the enthusiasm to cross the line.?

In a bitter race dominated by the Iraq war and national security, Kerry once again tried to squash criticism he would be soft on security issues if he were elected president.

?The Republicans are trafficking in fear because they haven?t delivered to America the security that we deserve,? said Kerry in an interview aired by CBS. ?I will do a better job than George Bush at making America safe.?

Several new polls showed the race was a statistical dead heat and polls in the approximately 10 battleground states that will decide the election were also close.

Officials reported record levels of early voting across the country, including nearly 2 million voters in Florida. The watchdog group Common Cause, which set up a hotline to record complaints about voting problems, said it had received more than 53,000 calls nationally.

<B>Kerry looser, ready to ?bring it home?</B>

Less than 36 hours before the presidential election, John Kerry had pumpkins on his mind. It was Halloween and the man who hopes to be the next leader of the free world wanted to carve jack o?lanterns.

In the waning days of his two-year quest for President George W. Bush?s job, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts has been a little looser, a bit worn and quite sanguine about the outcome. His aides are confident he can ?bring it home? today.

For Kerry, a Boston blueblood who traces his roots to his home state?s first governor John Winthrop, it has been a trip back from the political dead and a personal journey from reserved and aloof to not quite unplugged, but at least relaxed.

He delivers a shortened stump speech more forcefully now and hits punch lines with better timing. His longwindedness can still surface occasionally and sometimes he cannot resist going a touch overboard.

At an Asian American conference, he was explaining his credentials for dealing with the region?s issues. ?I?ve worked on the foreign relations committee for 20 years, I?ve been from India all the way further east through Burma,? he said. ?I?ve met with Aung Sun Suu Kyi in house arrest, I talked to the junta about freedom, I?ve been to Cambodia and negotiated in Cambodia the tribunals that the Khmer Rouge did under Pol Pot, I?ve been to Vietnam and negotiated to make peace, I?ve been to China, been to Malaysia, went to Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore.?

<B>An apt pupil</B>

When he gets tongue-tied, often his way out is simply to add ?whatever? to the end of the sentence.

Warning seniors in Florida on Sunday about Bush?s convention pledge to partially privatize the Social Security retirement system, he urged them to ?go to one of those, you know, dot com president, whatever? to read the president?s speech.

Kerry the candidate has come a long way since pundits declared him a sure loser in the months before the first contests for the Democratic presidential nomination.

While still no Bill Clinton ? the former president with an uncanny knack for instantly connecting with people ? the 60-year-old Vietnam War veteran has proved himself an apt pupil, opening up more to audiences about his life, his faith and his experiences commanding gunboats in the Mekong Delta.

<B>Patricia Wilson</B>

<B>Last poll gives Bush a one-point lead</B>

President George W. Bush edged into a one-point national lead over Democratic Sen. John Kerry one day before a cliffhanger presidential election, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released yesterday.

Bush led Kerry 48-47 percent in the latest three-day national tracking poll, well within the margin of error, setting up a tense final day in an extraordinarily close race for the White House.

Bush and Kerry were deadlocked at 48 percent on Sunday.

?Each candidate continues to do well among his base constituency,? pollster John Zogby said. Only three percent of voters remain undecided.

Kerry was favored by young voters ? those between the ages of 18 and 29 ? by 64 percent to 35 percent, but the size of the turnout in that voting bloc is one of the biggest unknowns of today?s election.

<B>Unpredictable groups</B>

Zogby said he was calculating young voters would account for 12 percent of the total vote, but a larger share would be a boost for the Massachusetts senator. ?Each point it goes higher translates into two-thirds of a percent for Kerry if these numbers hold up,? Zogby said.

Kerry had a 54-40 percent edge among newly registered voters, another unpredictable group that could be a wild card today depending on how many actually vote.

But Bush?s strongest issue, national security and the war on terror, moved into second place on the list of most important issues to voters. The economy has been the top issue since the poll started on Oct. 7.

Most of the three-day poll was conducted after a threatening new videotape from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden surfaced.

At this stage of the disputed 2000 election, Bush led Democrat Al Gore by one point in the daily tracking poll.

The poll of 1,208 likely voters was taken Friday through Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.

The national poll showed independent candidate Ralph Nader, blamed by some Democrats for drawing enough votes from Gore to cost him the election in 2000, with 1.2 percent.

Kerry had the lead on Sunday in six of 10 battleground states being polled separately including Florida and Pennsylvania, but Bush had a four-point lead in the critical state of Ohio.

A tracking poll combines the results of three consecutive nights of polling, then drops the first night?s results each time a new night is added. It allows pollsters to record shifts in voter sentiment as they happen.