Two presidential candidates with two days to go before crucial elections in two pivotal states descended yesterday on just one town in central Ohio.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both visited Westerville, a predominately white suburb of 35,000 people half an hour’s drive from the state capital of Columbus.

Their appearances in a pair of high school gymnasiums reflected how both campaigns are hurtling into tomorrow’s elections tussling for last-minute voters who may finally prove decisive in their epic race for the Democratic nomination.

Mrs Clinton held a morning rally for canvassers at Westerville North High School, where leaflets handed out at the door underlined how high the stakes were for her: “Ohio, it’s up to you!” they stated. In front of a crowd of 2,000, she said: “One thing you know is that I’m not afraid to get into a fight on your behalf.” She added: “For some people this election is about how you feel, or about speeches, but for me — it’s about solutions.”

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Bill Clinton has said that she must win Ohio and Texas — the two big states that vote tomorrow along with Rhode Island and Vermont — to keep her White House hopes alive after sustaining 11 losses.

Yet some of Mrs Clinton’s senior aides are suggesting that she will carry on even if the best that she gets is a split decision tomorrow. One possible scenario being discussed would see her win Ohio but being edged out in Texas — perhaps because of complex voting rules where a third of delegates are picked in post-primary caucuses.

Although she will come under enormous pressure from Democratic Party leaders to bow out if she fails to carry both states, her strategists believe that with Mr Obama being subjected to growing scrutiny, prolonging the battle will give voters time to go cold on him.

In the past 48 hours she has focused on her claim to have better Commander-in-Chief credentials. She is running a controversial television advertisement, showing sleeping children to the sound of a ringing White House phone, asking who would best handle a 3am national emergency.

She is also invoking John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, to sow doubts about Mr Obama. “He will put forth his lifetime of experience. I will put forth my lifetime of experience. Senator Obama will put forth a speech he made in 2002” — a reference to his anti-war address at a Chicago rally before the invasion.

Mr Obama, appearing three hours later at Westerville Central High School where sections of the crowd had to be accommodated in an overflow room, hit back by highlighting Mrs Clinton’s 2002 vote authorising military action in Iraq. For all her “foreign policy experience”, he said “when it came to making the most important foreign policy decision of our generation, Senator Clinton got it wrong”.

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