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NBC Wall Street Journal Romney

It's 47% each as Romney and Obama line up for final debate tonight

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By Noel Young, Correspondent

October 22, 2012 | 2 min read

American TV channels were swamped with aggressive political advertising at the weekend as tension grew in advance of tonight's final presidential debate from Boca Raton in Florida, starting at 9.00 pm US Eastern time.

Showdown time in Boca Raton

The total political ad spend is now expected to reach an unprecedented $1 billion, much of it from wealthy donors pouring money into so-called super- Pacs, technically without the involvement of the candidates.

The irony is that the presidential debates are seen to be having a huge amount of influence at far less cost.

The Washington Post’s Dan Balz put it, “Never have candidate debates played as important a role . . . as they have in this election.”

A listless Obama blew the first presidential debate in Denver and Romney's poll numbers have been improving ever since, although Obama made a comeback winning the second debate

The big question : Can Obama zap Romney in debate with No 3 with his superior knowledge and experience of foreign policy? One big topic could be the weekend hint of nuclear talks with Iran.

The latest polls show the candidates in a statistical dead heat nationally . An NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey released on Sunday showed each candidate favored by 47 percent of likely voters.

NBC Wall Street Journal Romney

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