Presidential battle in suspended animation

Post-tropical Cyclone Sandy put the U.S. presidential campaign in suspended animation Tuesday and canceled some early voting a week before Election Day. President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney both canceled their official campaigning. Obama, who called off a day of campaigning with former President Bill Clinton Monday to return to Washington from Florida for a storm-crisis briefing in the White House Situation Room, was to receive his usual daily Oval Office briefing Tuesday, the White House said Monday night. Nothing else was on his schedule. Romney, who campaigned most of Monday but canceled an evening event in Wisconsin "out of sensitivity" to those pummeled by Sandy, was to attend a "storm relief event" in Kettering, Ohio, near Dayton, with former NASCAR driver Richard Petty and country music singer Randy Owen from the 1980s group Alabama, his campaign said. Vice President Joe Biden canceled two Tuesday events in Ohio and one Thursday in Pennsylvania "out of an abundance of caution" to allow local officials to stay focused on the aftermath of the storm, which extended into some parts of eastern Ohio. Biden was to fly to Sarasota, Fla., Tuesday afternoon and spend the night, the White House said. Romney running mate Paul Ryan canceled his campaign appearances Tuesday to monitor the storm, the campaign said. While the candidates scrubbed campaign-trail appearances, the campaigns themselves were still active behind the scenes. The Obama campaign convened a conference call to tell reporters the president was headed to victory, while Romney aides pointed to newspaper endorsements of the former Massachusetts governor and weekend poll results indicating he was gaining momentum in the critical swing state of Ohio. In-person early voting was canceled Monday and Tuesday in Maryland and the District of Columbia because of the storm. It was also canceled at 15 to 20 polling places in densely populated Northern Virginia near Washington and in the Norfolk-Virginia Beach area, officials said. Virginia is considered a key swing state. Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell told reporters he would ask local officials to extend early voting hours after the storm passes. The storm forced early voting to be suspended Tuesday in Morgan County, W.Va., on the Maryland-Virginia border, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant said. In North Carolina, another battleground state, early voting sites in some coastal counties were closed Monday because of the weather. But state Board of Elections Executive Director Gary Bartlett said the disruption was minimal. Early voting continued unabated in the swing states of Ohio and Florida, which weren't directly in the storm's path. Almost 15 million people nationwide have cast early ballots so far, George Mason University's United States Elections Project said.