ORLANDO - The race for Florida's open U.S. Senate seat is a numbers game now, and both candidates will spend at least part of today reminding voters to get to the polls.
Democrat Betty Castor and Republican Mel Martinez spent the final full day of campaigning in a daylong series of rallies across the state.
Castor, who voted early, will campaign in Tampa at restaurants and polling places, finishing at midday.
Martinez plans to vote in the morning and talk by phone in the afternoon with Cuban-American radio stations in Miami.
Polls show the race is a dead heat, so both Castor and Martinez kept a frenetic pace on Monday.
In a sprawling state of 10 media markets, two time zones and a diverse population, Castor and Martinez each see different pockets of support they consider keys to victory.
Both are relying on presidential get-out-the-vote efforts and know the outcome of the race will depend largely on which presidential candidate wins Florida.
"Whoever has the superior ground game will win the president and the Senate," said Democratic U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson.
Martinez is trying to be the first Cuban-American senator and has the backing of White House strategists who see him drawing Hispanics to the president. Castor, meanwhile, sees herself as the next Bob Graham, the popular moderate who is retiring.
Martinez's camp is so confident, there's talk of winning every urban area, conceding only Broward and Palm Beach counties to Castor. That means beating Castor at home in Tampa Bay.
And Martinez advisers say they hope to hold Castor to less than 60 percent in Democrat-dominated Broward County, while overwhelming her in Jacksonville and the Panhandle.
Hispanics are a crucial part of Martinez's strategy, particularly in Miami-Dade County, where he trounced Republican primary rival Bill McCollum 20 to 1. Martinez strategists expect to get at least 50,000 more votes in Miami-Dade than President Bush.
Castor expects to win in Tampa Bay, Tallahassee and Gainesville, along with Broward and Palm Beach. Her strategists say they will closely watch North Florida and Orlando, where they hope to dampen Martinez's margin of victory.
The Castor campaign sees the Interstate 4 corridor as key.
"This is where moderate votes are in the state," Castor pollster Dave Beattie said. "That's one of the strengths Betty has. They knew her as something outside of politics."
Castor hopes to win at least 40 percent in the Panhandle, as Nelson did four years ago when he beat McCollum in their race for the U.S. Senate.
Republicans hope Martinez, President Bush's former housing secretary, will lure traditionally Democratic voters, particularly Central Florida Puerto Ricans. But Castor is confident she will do well with them.
Martinez held rallies Monday with some of the Republican Party's biggest stars, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and with Gov. Jeb Bush, whose popularity exceeds his brother's in Florida.
Martinez traversed the state, including a trip to a nighttime rally with several hundred people in downtown Delray Beach, in luxury on a DC-9 owned by Skyway Global, a Clearwater security company whose owners are Martinez supporters.
"He's going to be a great senator, whose story is a story that ennobles America," Giuliani told about 250 people at a downtown Orlando hotel.
Martinez seemed to distance himself from his negative ads. Speaking to TV stations at a rally in Brooksville, he said: "It's important for voters to know that now's the time to come together, not just as Floridians, but as Americans."
But in Panama City he turned his differences with Castor over the war in Iraq into a question of whether she supports the troops.
"I believe in their mission and my opponent does not," Martinez said, speaking from atop a flatbed truck. "I believe that for the president to have sent them into Iraq was the right thing to do. My opponent does not."
Castor, however, avoided the harsh attacks of the past two months and her staff suggested that Martinez was still going after her because he is behind.
Instead, she spoke of the importance of free public schools, reducing the cost of prescription drugs and providing more equipment and services for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We are meeting people just like you all over Florida who care about the future of this state and care about the future of this nation," Castor said in Tampa during the day's biggest rally.
Castor had her own celebrities to help her: Jimmy Buffett and Stephen Stills, two singers who have become staples of the Democratic campaign circuit. Sens. Nelson and Graham joined them in West Palm Beach, Orlando, Gainesville and Fort Lauderdale.
"She's prepared," Graham said of Castor at a rally in an airport hanger in Orlando. "She's ready. She will be going to work on the first day she's in the United States Senate."
Hundreds of people were at the evening rally at Joe Chillura Courthouse Square in downtown Tampa. Before a sea of blue Betty Castor signs, Buffett and Stills dedicated a version of Teach Your Children to Castor, a former teacher, state education commissioner and University of South Florida president.
On his way to catch a plane in Orlando, Martinez crossed paths with Michael Moore of Fahrenheit 9/11 fame, who was on his way to a League of Conservation Voters event.
"Even though I'm on the other side, good luck tomorrow," Moore told Martinez as they shook hands. "We're all Americans. Thank you for your service to our country."
Martinez smiled and said: "When I'm senator, you come see me."
