President Barack Obama will hold a rally in Madison for the second time in just over a month as part of a three-state tour the day before the election, his campaign announced Thursday.
The November 5 event will mark Obama’s third visit to Wisconsin in five days as the battle for the state’s 10 electoral votes continues. The president campaigned in Green Bay on Thursday and plans to stop in Milwaukee this Saturday.
Obama’s last visit to Madison came in early October the day after the first presidential debate when he spoke on Bascom Hill, which attracted a crowd of over 30,000.
Monday’s rally will take place in the morning, but the campaign has not yet announced a specific time and place. Katie Crawley, an assistant to Madison Mayor Paul Soglin, said the event will not occur on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus.
After the Madison rally, Obama will visit Columbus, Ohio in the afternoon and then hold his final rally of the 2012 campaign in Des Moines, Iowa, where he launched his 2008 presidential bid by winning the Iowa caucuses.
Bruce Springsteen, who has appeared with Obama at campaign events across the country in recent weeks, is slated to perform and introduce the president at the Madison rally. Springsteen also played at U.S. Sen. John Kerry’s, D-Mass., presidential campaign rally in Madison in 2004.
Obama and Springsteen will be joined by Jay-Z in Ohio and by First Lady Michele Obama in Iowa.
The latest Marquette University Law School poll shows Obama leads Romney in Wisconsin 51 percent to 43 percent, while a Wisconsin Public Radio/St. Norbert survey released Thursday gives Obama a nine-point advantage. But according to a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll, Obama’s lead over Romney is just three percentage points in the state.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney will stop in West Allis Friday for a rally at State Fair Park, but does not have any plans to return to Wisconsin before Election Day.
Obama’s October 4 trip to Madison cost the Madison Police Department $130,000, according to MPD spokesman Joel DeSpain. The MPD spent over $185,000 when the president visited Madison in the midst of the 2010 midterm elections.
