Obama going on the air in Arizona

Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) is expanding his advertising assault into rival Sen. John McCain’s backyard, going on the air in the GOP nominee’s home state of Arizona, where recent polls show a close race. 

On a conference call with reporters Friday morning, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said the Democratic presidential nominee is going on the air in Arizona and North Dakota and returning to the air in Georgia, where heavy early voting by black voters has given the camp reason to believe they can pick off the once-reliably red state.

{mosads}Plouffe stressed that the efforts to expand the map near the end of the contest are in no way taking away from their current efforts in battleground states, and he said the campaign remains “laser-focused” on reaching 270 electoral votes.

Plouffe added that early voting has been “highly encouraging,” and the number of new and sporadic Democrats the campaign sees turning out early puts the onus on McCain to overperform on Election Day.

“The die is being cast as we speak,” Plouffe said. He added: “Sen. McCain on Election Day is not just going to have to carry the day but carry it convincingly.”

Plouffe expressed confidence in Obama’s ability to win Florida, where polls show Obama narrowly leading a tight race.

Plouffe argued that, if "trendlines continue," Obama will win the state’s Hispanic voters, a tremendous turnaround after 2004 Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry lost that demographic to President Bush by double digits.

The campaign manager noted that the campaign would only run the positive version of the two “closing argument” ads in Arizona, adding that “if someone else had been the Republican nominee, I think Arizona would be [the] core battleground.”

Plouffe declined to offer overall turnout projections, saying the campaign thinks those numbers are of "strategic value." He did say he thinks the projection of McCain's lead pollster Bill McInturff earlier this week — a staggering 130 million voters — is low.

"We think it's higher than that," Plouffe said.

The McCain campaign's top officials were planning a similar conference call with reporters on the state of the race for later Friday morning.