Michelle Obama Urges Northern Iowa Students to Vote Early: 'It is Already Election Day'

Michelle Obama urged an enthusiastic crowd in Cedar Falls to vote early Friday.

"Here in this state, it is already Election Day," she said. "The beauty of where you are is that early voting started yesterday."

She said in 2008 her husband, President Barack Obama, won Iowa by 87 votes per precinct.

"That could mean just a couple of votes in a neighborhood," she said. "Maybe you know someone who might be thinking their vote doesn’t matter. Just keep that number, 87, in mind when you talk to them."

The speech, on the University of Northern Iowa campus, was the latest in a string of campaign visits to the area, including by Barack Obama, who visited Waterloo in August.

Michelle Obama's early voting pitch, part of an orchestrated part of the President's campaign, included a call for audience members to go straight from her speech to the Schindler Education Center, where an early voting station was set up for the day.

The pitch worked - a few minutes after the speech ended, a line snaked down a hallway and out the door of the campus building. A pile of blue "Forward" campaign signs lay in a pile outside, since election material is not allowed into any polling place.

"I'm really excited about it," said UNI freshman Josi Munoz, 18, as she waited. It was her first time voting. "I just wanted to get it done and make sure my voice is heard."

Capturing votes like hers and other Iowans is important to both the President and his Republican opponent Mitt Romney. Both of them, along with a slew of their surrogates, have streamed through the state in recent weeks, hoping to influence Iowa's undecided voters. Iowa is one of the country's few remaining swing states. Romney's wife Anne Romney was in Clive Sept 22.

Michelle Obama has a higher approval rating than her husband, something Iowa Senator Tom Harkin alluded to in introductory remarks.

"Truth be told, we all like Barack Obama, but we fell in love with Michelle Obama," he said.

This is the first lady's second visit to the UNI campus. She gave the commencement address at the 2011 graduation.

Friday's speech included many of the same lines she uttered in her address to the Democratic National Convention, but that didn't stop the crowd, many of whom arrived over three hours before she spoke, from cheering.

“Together, slowly but surely, we’ve been pulling ourselves out of the hole was started in,” she said. “Are we going to go back and turn around to the same policies that got us into this hole to start with?”

Obama spoke at the McLeod Center, which was about half full for the event. Campaign organizers said the crowd was around 2500 people.

Before the speech started, a group of a few dozen College Republicans rallied outside.

"We just want to show everyone that college students aren't necessarily supporting Obama," College Republican president Victoria Hurst told KWWL.

The Romney campaign issued a response to the speech.

"As Iowans begin voting, they know they have a choice between two very different visions for America," said Romney spokesman Shawn McCoy in an email. "President Obama’s vision for America is a government-centered society, where government grows bigger and more active, occupying more of our everyday lives. Mitt Romney’s vision for America is an opportunity society, and he is advocating policies that will give all Americans the opportunity to succeed."