Check out CNN's Electoral Map.

(CNN) — Some tough news for John McCain in his own backyard, as his home state of Arizona moves from “safe McCain” to “lean McCain” in the latest CNN poll of polls.

And the Republican nominee continues to lose ground in reliably-red areas, as North Dakota moves from “lean McCain” to “toss-up” – meaning three electoral votes that had been counted for McCain are now considered up for grabs.

But there’s some good news for McCain down south: Louisiana has moved from “lean McCain” to “safe McCain.” And the movement on the map is far from done.

Barack Obama now leads McCain by 131 electoral votes, up from his 128-vote lead yesterday. CNN now estimates that if the presidential election were held today, Obama would win 291 electoral votes and John McCain 160. There are 87 electoral votes up for grabs. Again, 270 electoral votes are needed to win the White House.

The CNN Electoral Map is based on analysis from the CNN Political Unit and takes into account a number of factors, including polling, state voting trends, ad spending patterns, candidate visits, and guidance from the campaigns, parties, and political strategists. The list will be updated regularly as the campaign develops over time.

McCain aides say a Reagan official who endorsed Obama lobbied to head the Arizona senator's transition.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (CNN) – Former Ronald Reagan Chief of Staff and powerhouse lobbyist Ken Duberstein became the latest member of the GOP establishment Friday to jump ship, suggesting to CNN he’ll vote for Barack Obama.

But three McCain sources tell CNN that little more than three months ago, Duberstein was pushing to run John McCain’s post-election transition to the White House — a charge Duberstein himself insists is not true.

One of the sources says he was contacted by Duberstein in July with a request to relay a message to the McCain team that he thought he would be an “ideal” person to run the Republican nominee's transition.

This source — who noted that at the time McCain was doing well in the polls — said he and Duberstein had several conversations about it, and that he did pass that information along to the campaign.

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The Obama-Biden campaign released an ad called Rear View on Thursday.

The Statement: In a television ad titled "Rear View," that began airing Thursday, October 30, the campaign for Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama attacks Republican opponent Sen. John McCain's economic policies, saying, in part, that McCain "would tax your health care benefits for the first time ever."

Get the facts!

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Biden says GOP attacks are over the top.

KETTERING, Ohio (CNN) – Joe Biden always closes his speeches by telling supporters that once the election is over, they have to reach out to Republicans, even those who have conducted “scurrilous” attacks against Obama. The same critics, Biden said Friday afternoon, will be calling Barack Obama “the 44th President of the United States of America” after November 4.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we need to move past the politics of division and attack,” Biden told supporters at rally, the first stop on a two day bus-tour through Ohio.

“Over the past weeks, the Republicans have gone way over the top in my view, calling Barack Obama every name in the book, and it probably will get worse in the next three and a half to four days.”

“If you look at who he is, what he's done, and what he plans to do for this country,” Biden continued, “if you work for us in the closing days and choose hope over fear, after next Tuesday the very critics he has now and the rest of America will be calling him something else. They will be calling him the 44th president of the United States of America, our commander-in-chief Barack Obama!”

John McCain released an ad Friday that was void of any negativity or direct mention of Obama, but tells voters, "don't hope for a stronger America, vote for one." McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis told reporters Friday morning that their campaign would outspend Obama's in the closing days.

Biden delivered his campaign’s “closing arguments” in a high school gym in central Ohio, a swing state where CNN’s poll of polls suggests Obama leads John McCain by 5 percentage points, 49 to 44 percent, with 7 percent of the state’s voters still undecided. The Delaware senator's battleground state tour continues over the weekend, with more stops in Ohio, Indiana and Florida.

Sen. McCain toured the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans with his wife, Cindy, in April of this year.

(CNN) — The lingering aftermath of Hurricane Katrina looms large over New Orleans residents this election season. CNN’s Voter Hotline has received several calls from New Orleans residents wondering where to vote, whether former evacuees are still registered, and how to vote absentee after being displaced.

Joseph Harris of New Orleans was confused about whether his temporary displacement after the storm would affect his registration.

“I was calling to make sure I was on the list. I want to make sure my information had been changed back now from Houston where I was evacuated during Katrina, and I just want to make sure I’m able to vote on November 4,” Harris asked on the Hotline.

According to the Louisiana Secretary of State, Katrina’s lingering impact doesn’t extend to the voter rolls. “There has been no purging because people were displaced by Katrina. Basically, they can vote if we have a good address,” said Jacques Berry from the Louisiana Secretary of State office. “If you live in a homeless shelter and have an address, you can register to vote in Louisiana.”

Katrina victims who were displaced and are still planning to vote in Louisiana should call the state’s toll free number, (800) 883-2805. The rules for those displaced by the storm are no different than other residents, Berry said. “There’s nothing specific to them.”

The Hotline has also gotten calls from New Orleans parish voters who haven’t received their absentee ballots. “There’s a good chance that all the absentee ballots are out now. We want all voters to have the opportunity to vote. I am sure all absentee ballots will be out with sufficient time,” Berry said. “We want all voters to have the opportunity to vote.”

If you are a resident in the state of Louisiana who has questions regarding your registration status or where you should go to vote, you can visit geauxvote.com or call 1 (800) 883-2805.

ABOARD THE ELECTION EXPRESS

DES MOINES, Iowa (CNN)– On this journey we stay in a lot of hotels near interstate highways, the kind that serve free breakfasts in the lobby. And at adjacent tables at breakfast one day during the past week, there was a person crying at one table, and people laughing at the next.

We have been in West Virginia and Indiana and Kentucky and Ohio and Missouri and now here in Iowa in recent days, and the stops tend to blur into each other, but this stood out. The woman crying at the one breakfast table was in the town for a funeral; I could overhear the conversation as family members tried to comfort her. She was weeping softly; if the people raucously laughing at the next table over had been aware of her grief, I like to think that they would have toned it down. But they were facing away from her, they didn’t hear or see her, so their laughter continued, as did her quiet tears.

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Sen. McCain releases two new ads in his final push to win the White House.

(CNN)–With only four days before election day, Sen. John McCain is ending the battle of the airwaves with a pair of 30-second spots.

"Obama Praising McCain" echoes a Web ad released a month ago: “Praising McCain." That spot spot shows prominent Democrats commending the Arizona senator for his stances on public policy and his leadership abilities within Congress. "Even Obama has Praise for the Maverick," read the screen.

In the new 30-second spot, an announcer begins “The truth on global warming”: the only other speaker in the ad is Obama himself. "The Lieberman-McCain bill establishes limits for greenhouse gas emissions. It's a framework that's not only good for the environment, it's also good for business," says Obama. "I want to thank Senator Lieberman, as well as Senator McCain, for the outstanding leadership that they've shown.”

The second spot, “Freedom,” brings the focus back to McCain’s biography. “I've served my country since I was 17 years old, and spent five years longing for her shores,” says McCain, evoking his time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.

“I came home dedicated to a cause greater than my own. We can grow our economy. We will cut government waste,” he says, adding — in an apparent subtle swipe at Barack Obama — “Don't hope for a stronger America. Vote for one. Join me.”

The campaign said the ad will air in key states. On a Friday conference call, campaign manager Rick Davis said he expected McCain to out-spend Obama on the air in the race’s closing days.

Is Obama right about McCain's tax plan?

The Statement:
At a rally Thursday, October 30, in Columbia, Missouri, Sen. Barack Obama said, "The choice in this election isn't between tax cuts and no tax cuts, it's whether you believe we should only reward wealth or whether we should also reward work and the workers who create it."

Get the facts!

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Sen. Barack Obama in an interview Friday with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

(CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama told CNN Friday that turning around the economy and energy independence are his top priorities for 2009 if elected president.

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer in Des Moines, Iowa, Obama was asked to name his top priority from a list of issues, including taxes, health care, education, energy policy and immigration.

"[The] top priority may not be any of those five. It may be continuing to stabilize the financial system. We don't know yet what's gonna happen in January," he said. "None of this can be accomplished if we continue to see a potential meltdown in the banking system and financial system. So that's priority number one — making sure the plumbing works."

Obama said priority number 2 is energy independence:

"We have to seize this moment because it's not just an energy independence issue, it's also a national security issue and it's a jobs issue. We can create five million new green energy jobs …"

You can watch the full interview on ‘The Situation Room’ at 6 p.m. ET.

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Long lines plagued Georgia polling places this Halloween.

ATLANTA (CNN) – The scariest part of this Halloween for some Atlanta voters is the unprecedented wait time at area polling stations, where heavy turnout and computer problems are leading to delays of 2 to 10 hours.

At a downtown Atlanta location the wait was up to four hours Friday as the line stretched down three blocks according to CNN’s Rusty Dornin, who was in line herself at the location.

And that location isn't even the longest wait for voters in that county. According to Jessica Corbitt of the Fulton County Office of Community Relations, at the Welcome All Center in South Fulton County the wait was five hours long.

Three thousand people have voted at the Adamsville location, according to Beverly Isom, executive aide to Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin. Isom told us that those at the front of the line at 4 p.m. had been waiting to vote since 9am, and that hundreds more have signed up and continue to wait in line. Crowds are reported to be orderly and patient — but are weary of the six-hour wait.

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The Statement
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, in an interview October 31 on ABC's "Good Morning America," praised his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, saying in part that she has "more experience than Senator Biden and Senator Obama put together."

Get the facts!

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Reporters pressed Kerry about the Osama bin Laden tape.

(CNN) – It's Halloween on Friday, but campaign aides to Barack Obama and John McCain may be spooked for another reason: Events that dominated the news in the dwindling days before the previous two presidential elections may have been game-changers.

Aides to Sen. John Kerry were increasingly confident of victory four days before the 2004 election, believing the Massachusetts senator performed strongly in three debates with President Bush and was buoyed by polls showing a last-minute surge for the Democratic ticket.

But that was before Osama bin Laden weighed in.

On Friday, October 29, the 9/11 mastermind released a videotape to Arab television network al-Jazeera, in which he condemned President Bush's response to the 9/11 attacks and told the American people, "Your security is in your own hands."

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Representatives of ACORN held a press conference in Washington, D.C. earlier this week.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A Pennsylvania judge rejected state Republican party demands to obtain lists of voters registered by the community group known as ACORN.

The state GOP accuses ACORN of widespread fraud in helping register some 140,000 voters in Pennsylvania.

ACORN welcomed the ruling against the Pennsylvania state Republican party, spokeswoman Ali Kronley told CNN Friday, turning the GOP charges back against the party.

"This kind of manufactured crisis is masking their own efforts to keep voters from voting," she said.

The top lawyer representing the Pennsylvania Republicans said they were "disappointed."

But, Heather Heidelbaugh added, the wording of the court order indicates the judge thinks ACORN has problems.

The judge said he would favor "expedited discovery" should someone want to pursue "evidence that in Pennsylvania practices of ACORN Outreach Workers can encourage duplicate voter registration."

The case hinges on allegations that ACORN canvassers are not trained properly, leading to improper voter registrations.

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Dole's chances of holding onto her Senate seat look precarious.

(CNN) — If the Democrats reach their goal of capturing 60 seats in the Senate, North Carolina may be a major reason why.

Freshman Republican Sen. Elizabeth Dole is trailing her Democratic opponent, Kay Hagan, by nine points, 53 percent to 44 percent, a new CNN/Time/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Friday suggests. Hagan had a smaller lead in other recent polls in North Carolina.

An already bitter contest turned uglier this week, when an ad by Dole's campaign suggested Hagan was "godless." The Dole campaign says it based its charge on Hagan's attendance at a fundraiser in the home of an advisor to the Godless Americans' political action committee, a group that promotes rights for atheists.

Hagan, a state senator from Greensboro, returned fire, saying she was "absolutely appalled" by the ad, calling it "politics of the worst kind." She also filed a lawsuit to prevent the ad from running.

The poll in North Carolina was conducted before Dole's campaign commercial began airing.

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Since losing his job in July, Jon Lowder is taking resume-building and networking classes.

(CNN) — Even before the economic crisis, voters listed the economy as the top issue in the presidential election.

In a CNN.com special report, Battleground Voters, we talked to voters in five battleground states — Colorado, Florida, Missouri, North Carolina and Ohio — to find out how the economy would influence their choice for president.

In the last of four parts, we talked to the unemployed, who say keeping jobs in their communities and in the country is key to their vote.

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Audio Slideshow

Check out the previous stories in CNN's special report on battleground voters: Tuesday's installment focused on small business owners, Wednesday's on students and Thursday's on retirees.

Palin is a huge hit with social conservatives who would love to see her run in 2012.

Former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger — a Republican and supporter of John McCain — told national public radio yesterday that Alaska governor Sarah Palin is not prepared to take over the job of President if she had to. He said, "I devoutly hope that [she] would never be tested."

But the fact is that if some people in the Republican Party get their way, she could be tested one day. Should John McCain lose the race for the White House, you can bet your last dollar this moose huntin', gun totin', pro-life hockey mom will not fade from the political spotlight. She's a huge hit with a group of social conservatives who embrace her values and see her as a fresh face for a divided party… to them, a 2012 Palin run for President may be on the horizon.

But a lot of other people feel quite differently. Sarah Palin quickly became a national joke for her lack of experience, failure to grasp the issues and inability to handle herself with the media.

To read more and contribute to the Cafferty File discussion click here

ACORN Executive Director Steve Kest announces the group's lawsuits and television spot Wednesday.

(CNN) — Community organization ACORN is fighting back after allegations that it is trying to register voters fraudulently and to swing the presidential election for Democrat Barack Obama.

The group this week released a 30-second TV ad calling on Republican candidate John McCain to stop "attempts at voter suppression across the country."

It also said it was filing several lawsuits around the country to halt the alleged suppression.

Republicans have "challenged election officials and they've filed lawsuits in an effort to thwart these new voters — our citizens — from casting their votes on Tuesday. This effort must be stopped," Delaware ACORN board member Hugh Alleyne said during a news conference Wednesday.

ACORN contends it tried to help authorities head off election fraud.

"In nearly every case that has been reported, it was ACORN that discovered the bad forms and called them to the attention of election authorities, putting the forms in a package that identified them in writing as suspicious, encouraging election officials to investigate, and offering to help with prosecutions," ACORN said in an October 9 release.

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Rick Davis says McCain is closing gaps in the polls.

(CNN) — As late polls continue to shows Barack Obama with an edge over John McCain in key battleground states, the Arizona senator’s campaign manager told reporters Friday the Republican nominee had momentum heading into the race’s closing days.

"We fight back," campaign manager Rick Davis said on a conference call, echoing McCain’s recent stump speech. "And we are witnessing, I believe, probably one of the greatest comebacks since John McCain won the primaries."

The latest CNN national poll of polls shows that Senator Barack Obama is at 50 per cent to McCain's 43 per cent, with 7 percent undecided. But Davis said surveys are irrelevant in the race’s homstretch.

"Guess what? Polling isn't accumulative," he said. "It's whatever it is today, and we see a very, very tight race today, so it really doesn't matter where it was ten days ago."

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Duberstein is pulling for Obama.

(CNN) — Former Reagan chief of staff Ken Duberstein told CNN's Fareed Zakaria this week he intends to vote for Democrat Barack Obama on Tuesday.

Duberstein said he was influenced by another prominent Reagan official - Colin Powell - in his decision.

"Well let's put it this way - I think Colin Powell's decision is in fact the good housekeeping seal of approval on Barack Obama."

Powell served as national security advisor to Reagan during Duberstein's tenure as chief of staff.

Duberstein spoke with Zakaria about his final days in the Reagan White House. The Reagan official, along with Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, also discussed the transition process to a new administration.

Watch the full discussion on the next administration this Sunday at 1 p.m. on Fareed Zakaria GPS.

Sen. Barack Obama is looking to change the Electoral College map.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — With just days to go before Election Day, Sen. Barack Obama is warning his supporters that things are going to get unpleasant fast — and that the race will come down to every last vote.

"Don't believe for a second this election is over. Don't think for a minute that power concedes anything. It's gonna get nasty, I'm sure, in the next four days," Obama told a crowd in Columbia, Missouri, on Thursday night.

"They will throw everything at us like they've been doing, and we're gonna have to work like our future depends on it in this last week. You know what? Because it does, and every single young person here tonight — I've gotta have every single one of you voting, and you've gotta grab five more, all of you, have gotta vote," he said.

The warning comes after the Illinois senator said in an interview Thursday night that his campaign was winning — some of the most confident language from Obama since he won the Democratic nomination.

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