Rivals storm key swing state Florida

White House rivals Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump set their sights on crucial battleground Florida yesterday, blitzing the diverse state as the clock ticks down on the tumultuous race for the US presidency.

With two weeks to go before the November 8 election, polls showed Democrat Clinton -- who is vying to be America's first female president -- dominating nationally and looking for a resounding mandate to govern the bitterly divided country.

Trump, his campaign wilting under a barrage of controversies, acknowledged that the White House will likely elude him if he doesn't win Florida and its 29 electoral votes.

"I think that's probably true," the Republican nominee said in a telephone interview with Fox News.

"I believe Florida is must-win. I think we're winning it, think we're winning it big," said the 70-year-old Manhattan real estate mogul.

Early voting began in Florida on Monday, an urgent reminder that candidates have little time left to make their case in the country's third most populous state, one with a wide mix of constituencies -- retirees, Latinos and Bible Belt whites.

No one has forgotten that the 2000 US presidential election turned on Florida, where a virtual tie was decided in favor of George W. Bush by the US Supreme Court.

Poll averages show that Clinton, the 68-year-old former secretary of state, is ahead in the state by 3.8 percentage points, and nationally by 5.1 points, according to RealClearPolitics.

She was to make a campaign appearance in the afternoon at a college in southern Broward County near Fort Lauderdale, before going on to a fundraiser in Miami.

Trump was first out of the blocks yesterday, taking aim at a sharp rise in health insurance premiums under President Barack Obama's signature health care reform. He vowed to shut it down if elected.

At a Monday fundraiser in La Jolla, California, President Barack Obama said he wants an overwhelming Clinton victory in order to send the message that Americans reject Trump's divisive rhetoric.

"We want to win big," Obama said. "We don't just want to eke it out, particularly when the other guy's already started to gripe about how the game is rigged."

With his path to victory narrowing, Trump has railed against the "phony" polls and appealed to voters to turn out, calling it a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" to reject the political elite."

"Make sure you get out and vote, or this whole thing, you know the movement that they're all talking about all over the world, it won't be the same, folks," Trump told an enthusiastic crowd in Tampa on Monday.