Hurricane Sandy temporarily suspends campaigning for Obama, Romney

MILWAUKEE -- Hurricane Sandy has temporarily suspended campaigning in the presidential race, with just about a week to go before Election Day. Both President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney had campaign events scheduled in Wisconsin this week -- but those trips were scrapped as Hurricane Sandy approached the east coast Monday, October 29th.

Romney had a rally planned for Monday at Wisconsin's State Fair Park Expo Center, and President Obama was supposed to meet with supporters in Green Bay Tuesday. It was supposed to be a final push to round up votes in Wisconsin -- a key battleground state, but Sandy has halted campaigning for now.

"The President made a very easy decision to put politics aside, get back to the White House and make sure governors and mayors all have the resources they need to deal with a huge and dangerous storm that's barreling toward them," Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

Neither campaign has officially committed to a return trip to the state, but both are sending strong signals they may be in Wisconsin by the end of the week.

Meanwhile, President Obama spent much of Monday in the "Situation Room," meeting with emergency officials. Gibbs told FOX6 News it is likely President Obama will likely reschedule his cancelled Wisconsin visit.

"Obviously, the President is anxious to come back to Wisconsin and make sure the voters understand the crucial issues at stake in this election, and I anticipate that will happen later on in the week or maybe over the weekend," Gibbs said.

The Romney campaign told FOX6 News events were cancelled on Monday and Tuesday "out of sensitivity" to those in Hurricane Sandy's path.

"Obviously we want to be respectful as a campaign of everything that's going on on the east coast," Romney Wisconsin Campaign Chairman Sen. Ted Kanavas said.

Romney has not campaigned in Wisconsin since August 12th, but Sen. Kanavas says Romney will be back in the state before Election Day.

"We'll have governor Romney coming back to visit, but we would have loved to have had him come tonight because it would have been a huge event," Sen. Kanavas said.

Each campaign is taking a wait-and-see approach to how they proceed. However, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan plans to host an event in Wisconsin and Trick-or-Treat with his kids on Halloween.

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