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Asking voters to raise taxes on themselves is a tough sell, but there are initiatives around the country doing just that. In Missouri, it's the cigarette tax. Missouri has the lowest cigarette tax of any state, and some of the highest smoking and lung cancer rates. St. Louis Public Radio's Veronique LaCapra reports.

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The presidential election is still a day away and already disputes have broken out in Florida.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Chanting) Let us vote. Let us vote. Let us vote. Let us vote.

Mitt Romney is making his final appearance in the states where he needs to slip past President Obama in Tuesday's election. Over the weekend, Romney traveled more than 5,000 miles and held eight rallies in seven states.

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On a Monday, it's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.

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And I'm Renee Montagne.

The one thing everybody is talking about in the presidential race is the one thing we cannot truly know, and that's who's going to win.

INSKEEP: Some Republican pundits have boldly forecast a massive win for Mitt Romney, though they struggle to show exactly why.

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This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

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And I'm Steve Inskeep.

When voters go to sleep on election night, they have usually heard reports on who's won the election. Many people are devoutly hoping that that will be the case on Tuesday night. But not all the results are actual results. Some are vote tallies, but most are projections based on exit polls and other data collected by pollsters.

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SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: And I'm Scott Horsley, traveling with the president, who's also milking every last hour from these final days. Mr. Obama was up long past midnight, and he's planning another 14-hour, voice-taxing marathon today, ending with a final rally in Iowa, where his national campaign began five years ago.

(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I'm here today because I'm not ready to give up on the fight. I know I look a little older, but I got a lot of fight left in me.

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The U.S. economy has been slowly recovering, but economists warn it could plunge back into recession if Congress does not take action to avoid what's become known as the fiscal cliff.

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That is the name that some clever communications specialist gave to the combination of expiring tax cuts - in other words, tax increases - and broad, mandatory spending cuts aimed at reducing the deficit. The two are set to go into effect at the end of the year.

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And today's last word in business is: Hurricane Ralph.

The movie "Wreck-It Ralph," opened to the largest weekend ever for an animated Disney film, bringing in almost $50 million.

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NPR business news begins with television the day after tomorrow.

All those political ads on TV and radio, billions of dollars worth, are about to come to an end. Which, if you're a TV station, raises the question of what will take their place?

NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports.

WENDY KAUFMAN, BYLINE: This year, Political spending will reach an all-time high. The Center for Responsive Politics puts the figure at about six billion dollars. More than half of that has gone into TV ads for president and everything else.

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Estimates of the economic cost of the storm damage caused by Hurricane Sandy along the East Coast, are as high as $50 billion. A lot of that is physical damage. Just under half of those losses, though, are from things people didn't, or couldn't, do during the storm; like eat in restaurants, go to the theater, or just work. Reporter Tracey Samuelson brings us this look at the blows Sandy has dealt a pair of small-business owners in New York City.

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And now, here's our daily look at the bottom line, which in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, can be found on those long and exhausting gas lines in New Jersey. Today's date has new meaning for drivers in New Jersey, where gas is being rationed. This being an odd-numbered day, November 5th, those allowed to buy gas must have an odd number at the end of their license plate.

As NPR's Martin Kaste reports, the odd-even rationing system doesn't seem to be shortening the lines.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It started right here.

The final days of an election cycle bring an obsession with the short term — the very short term. Daily tracking polls. A relentless get-it, post-it, blog-it news cycle. Trending topics on Twitter telling us something (though it's not always clear what).

But for just a moment, let's slow it down, look at what's happening over a somewhat longer time frame, and see what it tells us about what the country will look like for the winner of the presidential race.

The Long View

Lianne La Havas was pretty much unknown until she appeared on the influential TV show in Britain called Later with Jools Holland. It was just her, singing and playing guitar. Her voice was clear, pure and soulful. The song she performed — called "Age" — was both jazzy and sassy.

"Time seemed to stand still," wrote one critic of La Havas' live performance. There were much more established artists on the music show that day, but Alison Howe, the producer, says La Havas was the standout.

As relentlessly as the candidates have courted voters, they've also shown their love to donors.

A report by the Center for Responsive Politics places the total cost of the 2012 elections at an estimated $6 billion, which would make it the most expensive election in U.S. history

The final poll released Sunday by the Pew Research Center ahead of Tuesday's election shows President Obama has a 3 percentage point lead over Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney just two days before the general election.

Obama leads Romney 48 percent to 45 percent in the poll of 2,709 likely voters, which has a margin of error of 2.2 percentage points. The poll was conducted Oct. 31-Nov. 3.

Here's more from the Pew news release:

Here's what's happening today in the New York-New Jersey area, nearly a week after Superstorm Sandy devastated the region:

-- New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said tens of thousands of people whose houses were damaged by the storm will need other places to live because of the falling temperatures.

Election Day is promising many firsts — and not just the obvious ones.

Yes, the country could get its first Mormon president if Republican Mitt Romney is elected. And of course, it could get its first two-term African-American commander in chief if President Obama is re-elected.

But Tuesday offers a smorgasbord of other potential "first" opportunities across the nation — from New Hampshire, which could end up with the nation's first all-female congressional delegation, to Arizona, which could elect its first Hispanic U.S. senator.

New York City's canceled marathon left thousands of runners who had traveled to the storm-damaged city with nothing but free time and a good pair of shoes.

The result: Sunday morning's hastily arranged mercy run in which hundreds of would-be marathoners are expected to jog through Staten Island with backpacks full of food and other supplies.

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Richard Burton was one of the most acclaimed actors of his time.

(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "RICHARD BURTON'S HAMLET")

RICHARD BURTON: (as Hamlet) Frailty they name is woman. A little month, or ere those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father's body. Like Niobe, all tears. Why she, even she...

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Among the areas hit hard by Superstorm Sandy were Manhattan neighborhoods like Greenwich Village and Chelsea, home to many of the city's art galleries, jazz clubs, dance venues and off-Broadway theaters. Jeff Lunden spoke with some of those making plans to get back to work now that power has returned.

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This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.

In this final weekend before Election Day, President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney are both looking for an edge as they make their final arguments to voters in a handful of battleground states.

For more, Mara Liasson, NPR's national political correspondent joins us. Mara, welcome.

MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Nice to be here.

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ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: I'm Ari Shapiro, traveling with the Romney campaign. And here's a summary of Romney's final sprint: a rally in New Hampshire, a flight to Iowa for another rally, a flight to Colorado, two rallies there with a long bus drive in between then back to Iowa for a few hours' sleep in Des Moines. And that was just yesterday. Romney means it when he says:

MITT ROMNEY: We've had some long days and some very short nights.