US election: Obama leading among early voters in key states

President Barack Obama is heading toward Election Day with an apparent lead over Republican Mitt Romney among early voters in key states that could decide the election.
But Obama's advantage isn't as big as the one he had over John McCain four years ago, and that gives Romney's campaign hope that the former Massachusetts governor can erase the gap in Tuesday's election.
About 25 million people already have voted in 34 states and the District of Columbia. No votes will be counted until Election Day but several battleground states are releasing the party affiliation of people who have voted early.

Romney may lose own state, Massachusetts, where he was governor
It happened in 1844, and now 168 years later, Republican nominee Mitt Romney may need to duplicate a rare feat achieved by James Polk, the 11th US President, if he wants to defeat President Barack Obama in Tuesday's race to the White House.
According to latest polls, Romney, 65, faces the prospect of losing both the state of his birth, Michigan, and the state where he lives and served as governor, Massachusetts to Obama, a Democrat.
Obama, 51, holds a double digit lead in Massachusetts, but the race is closer in Michigan, with the polls tightening, though the president remains in front, CNN reported.
Polk, a Democrat, who was president from 1845 to 1849 is the only major candidate to win the White House despite losing the vote in the state where he was born and the state where he lived, the report said.