David Goldman / AP Photo

It’s been a long campaign season, at times resembling a spaghetti Western starring Clint Eastwood. We saw moments that were both good and bad for the presidential candidates, and some rather ugly moments for the country. But as we look back, there were 20 clear turning points in the 2012 election.

David Goldman / AP Photo

In his final day of campaigning for the prize he has chased for six years, Mitt Romney is playing the bipartisanship card, accusing President Obama of stiffing the opposition party.By contrast, Romney told audiences on Monday, as he raced from Florida to Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire, that he will work with the Democrats to get things done.

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo

When President Obama and campaign aides finally hit the sack early Tuesday in Chicago, they were supremely confident. But if they were to be beset by one nightmare, said two confidantes, it was an unforeseen, large turnout of white voters for Mitt Romney.

Bloomberg / Getty Images

Suddenly came a burst of applause in the downtown Chicago field office of Obama for America, where 100-odd volunteers in folding chairs at metal tables, on the fifth floor of a dingy office building, were contacting voters Monday in the battleground states of Iowa and Wisconsin.

Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo

OK, here we go: the prediction column. Yes, I am predicting that Barack Obama will win, but since I need to get a whole column out of this, let me build slowly and methodically toward the dramatic conclusion.First, let me start with this somewhat astonishing (I think) observation.

Tauseef Mustafa, AFP / Getty Images

It was a surprising discussion to encounter in war-ravaged Aleppo. But here, amid the rubble of a bombed-out city, rebels had one subject on their minds: the American election.“Romney or Obama?” one young soldier asked rhetorically, in what became an hour-long group-tirade against President Barack Obama.

AP Photo (4)

With election forecasters predicting enough close races will break for the Democrats, Republican hopes of regaining control of the Senate now appear dashed.Polls close at 7 p.m. in the Northeast, and if Democrats win seats in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Virginia, together with independent Angus King in Maine, Republicans won’t have enough opportunities left across the country to gain the four seats they need to reach 51.

Paul J. Richards, AFP / Getty Images

In anticipation of the 2012 election, the Rockaway Youth Task Force proudly registered about 350 18- to 24-year-olds from the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens. But Milan Taylor, the group’s 23-year-old founder and president, doubts any of those newly registered voters will cast a ballot Tuesday.

Jewel Samad / AFP

Less than 24 hours before the first polls open on Election Day, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney held their final campaign rallies. Both candidates appeared in Columbus, Ohio, the capital city of what’s predicted to be one of the race’s most crucial swing states.

Gerardo Mora / WireImage

Forward. That’s the familiar one-word mantra of the campaign to reelect President Barack Obama. But at this point on the eve of that election, the campaign’s slogan can be boiled down to a another word: turnout.Take First Lady Michelle Obama’s appearance at a park near the Orlando International Airport Monday night.

Mike Groll / AP Photo

It’s been a big week of decisions in the Big Apple. In one that could prove controversial, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed an emergency executive order allowing voters in New York to cast their ballots at any polling station in the state.

Chad Clark / New York Army National Guard / Landov

I am typing with gloves on, the kind that don’t have fingertips.Every night I go to bed with more clothes on. The first night it I added socks, the next I left my shirt on. Soon I will be sleeping fully clothed and wearing a cap like the narrator of The Night Before Christmas.

Carolyn Kaster

A consensus is emerging. The national and state polls, the aggregators and model-makers, and many of the mainstream pundits willing to make a stand (except The Washington Post’s horse-racing columnist) are starting to converge.

Jewel Samad / AFP / Getty Images

ORLANDO, Fla. — They have been laughed at, barked at, yelled at, and literally told to “go fly a kite” (because people here still say that.) They have notified surprised Americans that Election Day is on Tuesday and that George W.

(L) Chip Somodevilla (R) Emmanuel Dunand / Getty Images

There’s only one day left before the polls open and the race is far too close to call. Landslide predictions—for both candidates—have all been thrown out the window and with good cause.The national vote is about as close as it could be.