Both Stevens and Obama Campaign Senior Adviser David Axelrod said the storm froze the campaign.

"We lost the ability to control the race," Stevens said. "The ball went out of our hands."

"There is no doubt the storm froze the race," Axelrod said adding it didn't result in a big change in approval numbers for the president. Instead of election stories the news was dominated by storm developments. "It froze the race in an advantageous way...and we had banked a lot of votes."