Obama stays behind closed doors for returns UPDATED

The final curtain isn't likely to fall on this presidential election

until the wee hours of Wednesday morning, but President

Barack Obama's moment to exit the stage came more than 24

hours earlier.

With the imposing Iowa State Capitol looming over a soggy

crowd that bore near-freezing temperatures in windswept Des

Moines, Obama made his last major appearance of the 2012

campaign to urge the more than 20,000 supporters to maintain

the enthusiasm that first catapulted him from a fresh-faced

senator to presidential front-runner nearly five years ago.

Flanked by first lady Michelle Obama and rock star Bruce

Springsteen, Obama's final bow came in the Hawkeye State as

the clock approached midnight there, marking at long last the

arrival of Election Day and the end of the president's last

campaign -- 105 rallies after kicking off his re-election effort in

Ohio and Virginia seven months prior.

Get up-to-the-minute election results

To be sure, when Air Force One touched down in Obama's

hometown of Chicago 60 minutes later, the president's role as a

candidate was all but done.

The next time he appears on a stage, it will be to address

supporters in a ballroom Tuesday night having either just

secured four more years in the White House or having conceded

the race to a President-elect Mitt Romney moments earlier.

As for Election Day itself, Obama is largely lying low, as has

long been his practice when it comes time for voters to head to

the polls. That's not to say the president has closed the book on

entirely on his re-election effort. Aides say Obama will sit for a

string of satellite interviews with television stations in

battleground states in a final effort to get his message out.

Earlier Tuesday, he sat for nearly a dozen satellite interviews

with local television stations in swing states, including two each

in Iowa, Ohio and Florida -- states the president's campaign has

particularly focused on. Markets in Nevada and Colorado also

got interviews. And in the afternoon, the president sat for an

additional six interviews in yet more battleground markets.

Meanwhile, the president also turned up at a campaign field

office in Chicago on Tuesday to shake hands with volunteers.

Inside the polls: Voters evenly divided