Nov. 4 (Bloomberg) — Barack Obama and John McCain will still be campaigning even as Election Day dawns and voters are going to the polls.

Obama will make another run at flipping the reliably Republican state of Indiana into the Democratic column after voting this morning near his home in Chicago. McCain will vote in Phoenix then campaign in New Mexico and Colorado, two states that voted for Republican President George W. Bush in 2004 and where polls show Obama has the advantage.

After 22 months of stumping across the country, Obama had a single message on election eve.

“I have just one word for you, Florida: tomorrow,” he said yesterday in Jacksonville, Florida, a key swing state in the election. “Tomorrow, at this defining moment in history, you, each and every one of you, can give this country the change we need.”

McCain, behind in polls nationally and trailing or in a close fight in a dozen states won by Bush in the last election, sought to keep his supporters energized.

“We’re going to win,” he told a crowd of about 1,500 people yesterday at the airport in Indianapolis. “We’ve got the momentum.”

The last of the pre-election polls released yesterday all showed Obama holding the lead in the race even as McCain closed the gap in several. Obama held an average lead of 7 percentage points in a dozen polls that concluded interviews on Nov. 2.

Poll Margins

A CBS News daily tracking showed McCain gaining 4 percentage points among likely voters, narrowing Obama’s advantage to 9 points from 13 points. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey shows Obama leading 51-42 percent, the same margin as two weeks ago. A Washington Post/ABC News daily tracking poll put the race at 53 percent support for Obama to McCain’s 44 percent, a margin that has remained steady for two weeks. Marist College’s national survey showed Obama ahead of McCain 52 percent to 43 percent.

The smallest margin was in an Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll which showed Obama ahead by 5 percentage points.

In state polls, Obama leads in the battlegrounds of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. All except Pennsylvania went for Bush in 2004. The two candidates are in a closer fight in Florida, North Carolina and Indiana, three more Republican states in the last election.

First Votes

The first votes in the election were cast in the two northern New Hampshire villages of Dixville Notch and Hart’s Location, with a combined population of a little more than 100 people. Obama defeated McCain 15 votes to 6 in Dixville Notch, according to WMUR, a local television station. By tradition, polls in both towns open at midnight local time. The two hamlets generally lean Republican. In 2004, Bush beat Democratic Senator John Kerry 35 to 21, though Kerry won the state.

Obama, who opened his candidacy where Abraham Lincoln gave his “House Divided” speech, closed his historic campaign near the site of the Battle of Bull Run, the first major battle of the Civil War. He thanked his supporters at a 90,000 person rally in Manassas, Virginia.

“You’ve filled me with new hope for our future, and you’ve reminded me about what makes America so special,” Obama said.

Encouraging voters to not let up before the polls close tomorrow, Obama revived a chant he used throughout the primaries but rarely in the general election: “Fired Up, Ready to Go.”

Earlier yesterday, Obama got word that his grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, died at age 86 after a battle with cancer.

`Toot’

The Illinois senator flew to Hawaii for two days last month in the final stretch of the campaign to be with the woman he called “Toot,” short for “tutu,” the Hawaiian word for grandmother. He has credited his maternal grandmother with his success in life.

“ She has gone home,” Obama said last night in Charlotte, North Carolina, his eyes welling. “And she died peacefully in her sleep with my sister at her side and so there’s great joy as well as tears.”

McCain and his wife, Cindy, sent a statement of condolence, and at a rally in Roswell, New Mexico, last night the Arizona senator said Obama’s family is “in our thoughts and prayers.”

Along with blitz of campaigning in battleground states yesterday and today, the two candidates recorded interviews that were broadcast during half-time of “Monday Night Football” on the ESPN cable network. The program, which last night featured a game between the Washington Redskins and the Pittsburgh Steelers, reaches more than 10 million viewers.

Sports Talk

Asked, in the recorded interview, to name one thing they would change in sports, Obama said college football should adopt a playoff system to decide its national champion, while McCain said he would like to put an end to the spread and use of performance-enhancing substances in athletics.

McCain’s campaign got some good news last night from Alaska. A state Personnel Board investigation concluded that Governor Sarah Palin, McCain’s running mate, didn’t violate ethics rules when she fired the state’s public safety commission in July. An earlier investigation conducted for a legislative panel found that Palin abused her authority in the matter.

Separately, the campaign last night released a letter from Palin’s physician since 1997, Cathy Baldwin-Johnson of Anchorage, declaring her to be in “excellent health” with “no known health problems that would interfere with her ability to carry out the duties and obligations” of vice president. Baldwin-Johnson said Palin, 44, has been a patient at her Providence Health & Services clinic since 1991.

Knocking on Doors

McCain, 72, took on a seven-state blitz on election eve, mostly urging his supporters to “knock on doors, get your neighbors to the polls,” and staying on the offensive against Obama.

He said one of his main differences with Obama is the “fundamental philosophy about the role of government, taxes, redistribution of the wealth, this whole far-left liberal philosophy that he’s been part of.”

Obama, 47, continued to tie McCain with Bush, calling him a “sidekick” of the Republican incumbent who’s approval rating is below 30 percent in polls.

“When it comes to the economy — when it comes to the central issue of this election — the plain truth is that John McCain has stood with George Bush every step of the way,” Obama told a rally in Jacksonville, Florida, an area that gave Bush almost 58 percent of its votes four years ago.

Both campaigns are spending on a last blanket of advertising and get-out-the-vote efforts. While most votes still are cast on Election Day, a majority of states now allow some form of early voting and figures show almost a third of ballots in the presidential race already have been cast.