TOM TANGNEY

Obama vs. Romney: Latest poll results

Sep 18, 2012, 6:35 AM | Updated: 9:01 am

cedargrove
Seven weeks from today we will be electing a president, and the national polls have tightened a bit. (AP Photo)

Seven weeks from today we will be electing a president, and the national polls have tightened a bit, with Barack Obama’s post-Convention bounce of 5 to 7 percentage points shrinking this past week to about a 3 per cent lead over Romney.

As for the 10 key battle ground states, one, Michigan, has moved into the “leans Obama” category this week.

Real Clear Politics, which averages all the latest polls, has the probable electoral breakdown at the moment as this (and remember you need 270 electoral college votes to win):

Obama: 237
Romney: 191

That leaves nine battleground states with 110 electoral votes still considered a toss-up.

Perhaps most significantly, Obama maintains slim leads in the key toss-up states of Ohio, Florida and Virginia.

Most all of these polls do not take into account the latest Middle East protests.

The Pew Research Center did do a poll strictly about that and Romney seems to have been hurt by it: 48 percent of people polled disapproved of Romney’s comments immediately following the attack, 26 percent approving.

The president’s numbers were better: 45 percent approving, 36 percent disapproving.

There’s a general sense that Romney is lagging behind, and some sniping within the Romney campaign has been surfacing, especially in a long Politico article.

Politico has a long article detailing a lot of the frustrations many staffers have with the way the campaign has gone so far, primarily blaming top strategist Stuart Stevens for a number of missteps including Romney’s convention speech, Clint Eastwood’s last minute impromptu talk with a chair and the hastily called press conference about the Libya attacks.

There’s backbiting and infighting in every political campaign but when it leaks out into the press that’s usually a sign the campaign’s in some real trouble.

There has also been speculation that the GOP Super Pacs might be considering shifting their resources away from Romney and toward the Senate and House races. Karl Rove’s Super Pac American Crossroads has for instance pulled out of Michigan. But an American Crossroads rep says that we’re still a long way from pulling the plug on the presidential race. In all the states Romney has to win, this rep says he’s still within the margin of error.

By TOM TANGNEY

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Obama vs. Romney: Latest poll results