Gallup has released the results of its final poll of the Presidential election finding a “statistical tie” with Republican Presidential nominee Mitt Romney at 48% and Barack Obama at 47% — with polling results now having returned to Oct 1 -7, basically wiping out Romney’s debate gains and registering high approval for Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy.

Here’s Gallup’s bottom line summary:

Gallup finds a statistical tie among likely voters in its final presidential election survey of 2012, suggesting a very close battle in the national popular vote, and raising the possibility of a split between the popular vote and the Electoral College outcome. The race is not only close overall, but has Romney and Obama holding equally strong advantages among men and women, respectively, and closely matched among political independents. This suggests that turnout of partisans could be particularly important in deciding the election, with Romney poised to benefit slightly more if they do, with 96% of Republicans backing him, as compared with Obama’s 93% support from Democrats.

This poll is one of many that suggests election night could be a nail biter since the closeness of the race precludes blanket confidence for either side. Details:

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are within one percentage point of each other in Gallup’s final pre-election survey of likely voters, with Romney holding 49% of the vote, and Obama 48%. After removing the 3% of undecided voters from the results and allocating their support proportionally to the two major candidates, Gallup’s final allocated estimate of the race is 50% for Romney and 49% for Obama.

Much of this year’s campaigning has focused on women and swing voters, and the race concludes with each candidate holding equally strong advantages with one gender and closely matched in support by party identification. Romney holds a 10-percentage point lead among men, 53% to 43%, while Obama is winning by nearly the same margin, 52% to 44%, among women. The two are roughly tied among independents — 46% favor Obama and 45% Romney. Each candidate has the strong support of his own party, with 96% of Republicans backing Romney and 93% of Democrats supporting Obama…

Romney’s Debate-Period Surge May Have Run Its Course

Current voting preferences mark a return to the status of the race from Oct. 1-7, when Obama and Romney were tied at 48% among likely voters. After that, Romney moved ahead in mid-October during the presidential debate period, holding a three- to five-point lead in Gallup Daily tracking shortly before superstorm Sandy devastated many areas on the East Coast Oct. 29-30. Romney’s and Obama’s current close positioning in the Nov. 1-4 poll was measured as the Northeast continued to recover from superstorm Sandy, and after Obama’s highly visible visit to the region.

Between Oct. 22-28 and Nov. 1-4, voter support for Obama increased by six points in the East, to 58% from 52%, while it held largely steady in the three other regions. This provides further support for the possibility that Obama’s support grew as a result of his response to the storm.

The poll also shows Americans giving Obama high marks for the way he dealt with the storm: 68% of likely voters approve of the way he handled “the response to Superstorm Sandy,” by far his highest approval rating on any of four issues Gallup asked about in the final poll. Obama’s approval rating among likely voters on the other three issues ranges from 46% on foreign affairs to 42% on the economy, and 39% on handling the situation in Libya.

Here’s the Pollster.com chart showing the average of polls: