newjerseynewsroom.com

BY BOB HOLT

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

The formation of Hurricane Sandy may be this year’s "October surprise" for both presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

It’s not impossible that the massive storm could have an effect on the results of next Tuesday’s election — particularly as Sandy's mess heads toward swing state Ohio.

Brad Knickerbocker of The Christian Science Monitor points out that Sandy may hurt President Obama more than Mitt Romney. He says if the federal response to Sandy is looked at as inadequate, Obama will be blamed.

Obama’s team was counting on early voters and efforts encouraging people to vote on Election Day, but Maryland has canceled early voting for Monday. President Obama canceled plans to visit Virginia on Monday and Colorado on Tuesday to monitor the hurricane.

Politico's Jonathan Allen questioned whether the hurricane would hurt Republican challenger Romney. He said that Romney has gained ground on Obama in recent weeks in the polls, but that gain hasn’t shown up in Ohio and Virginia. Romney canceled plans to be in Virginia Sunday.

Early voting are a good bet to stop in the East, and likely power outages may last much of the week and even until until Election Day. Stop us if you’ve heard this before, but the election winner may not be known right away if results are close enough to call for recounts.

According to The New York Times, so many provisional ballots may be cast in Ohio that it may take until mid-November to determine the election winner.

Regarding whether the hurricane could have an effect on people’s ability to vote in the Presidential race, Obama said, according to The Daily Caller, “We don’t anticipate that at this point, but we’re obviously going to have to take a look.” Obama had received a briefing on the storm from FEMA.

Obama is remaining in Washington today, according to the New York Daily News, while Romney still plans to attend rallies in Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin.