Their appeals took them from the Detroit area across the state to Grand Rapids.
But candidates with more local races also were busy knocking on doors, stopping at plant gates and shaking hands in diners to pull in more votes. Voters heading to the polls today were barraged yesterday with campaign ads and calls urging them to vote.
In Lansing, Levin told a crowd of about 50 volunteers to keep working right up until the polls close today to help Democrats all down the ticket, even though polls have shown him with a wide lead over Romney.
"That turnout, that last vote, is absolutely critical for Democrats. It always is," he said.
Afterward, he told reporters he was not slacking off despite his consistent double-digit lead in the polls.
"There's never been an easy race for me. We have always gone out, communicated with people and we've worked right up until the time the polls closed. We'll be doing that again," he said.
"We don't put much stock in public opinion polls and candidates that do, I think, make a bad mistake."
Despite his cautious words, Levin appeared relaxed and joked with reporters, grabbing the microphone from one broadcaster and pretending to interview him about whether it was his last election.
Levin's schedule also included similar stops in Grand Rapids, Flint and Detroit.
Meanwhile, Romney urged supporters to go home and call every phone number in their Rolodex to get people out to vote.
"That's where we're going to win it," she said.
Romney, whose support has never climbed above 35 percent in published polls this fall, said Levin's support is eroding. She predicted she would pick up the votes of undecided voters.
"This is very much a horse race, absolutely," she said.
Stops in Cadillac, Grand Rapids, Flint and Birmingham filled the rest of her day.
Candidates in tight races farther down the ticket tried to work their own last-minute magic.
In the 8th Congressional District, incumbent Republican Dick Chrysler continued a bus tour he started Saturday. He visited several Livingston County manufacturers with Gov. John Engler yesterday morning. He also planned stops at an auto plant gate in Lansing and in restaurants around the district.
Challenger Debbie Stabenow enlisted the help of her two brothers - who appeared with her in a recent ad chiding Chrysler for picking on her - one last time. The trio scheduled campaign visits to the Michigan State University campus, auto plants in Lansing and near Flint and at Lansing restaurants.
Stabenow and Chrysler have been neck-and-neck in every poll since the summer of 1995. A new poll released over the weekend found no change.
Forty-six percent of those surveyed by Lansing-based EPIC/MRA supported Chrysler, and the same number backed Stabenow. Nine percent were undecided.
The poll revealed a slight Chrysler gain from a poll taken three weeks earlier, in which 39 percent supported Chrysler, 44 percent were for Stabenow and 18 percent were undecided.
The poll of 400 likely voters was taken Oct. 28-30 for The Flint Journal and WJRT-TV and had a margin of error of 5 percentage points either way.
Stabenow remained optimistic yesterday.
"From every indication we have, we are in a very good position to win," she told reporters.
Despite both parties' efforts to get their supporters to the polls, Michigan State University political science professor David Rohde predicted voter turnout would fall between the 63 percent rate for 1992 and 1988's 55 percent.
That's partly because presidential candidate Ross Perot will pull fewer infrequent voters to the polls this year, Rohde said.
Levin
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