A slew of new polls suggests that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is lagging behind President Obama in several crucial swing states.
The polls may be the best indicator yet that a post-convention bounce has given the president’s campaign a surge of momentum 53 days before the election — at least for now.
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“It is what it is,” the former New York congressman said.
FACT CHECKER | A GOP lawmaker cited Harry Reid’s false claim that Mitt Romney paid no taxes at the IRS hearing. He asked how Reid “obtained” his information.
“We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us,” the president said.
Though the Romney campaign has shrugged off the uptick in polls for Obama as a “sugar high,” Republicans are pushing Romney to refocus his message on the economy and get more specific about his agenda in response. Romney has been diverted from his core message by foreign policy debates this week, facing pushback from prominent conservatives over his criticism of Obama after the violence in Egypt and Libya.
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll shows Romney trailing Obama by at least five points in Florida, Virginia and Ohio, all states that Obama won in 2008.
In Florida, which has 29 electoral votes — up from 27 in 2008 — Obama has a five-point lead among likely voters and an eight-point lead among registered voters.
Romney is expected to visit the Sunshine State for high-dollar fundraisers and campaign events next week.
In Ohio, where Romney is holding campaign events Friday, Obama has a clear edge for that state’s 18 electoral votes — 50 percent of likely voters back the president and 43 percent support Romney.
And voters in all three states are more optimistic than they were in May, with at least 40 percent saying that the country is heading in the right direction. That suggests that voters are starting to believe that things are getting better — and that, as Bill Clinton said in his address at this month’s Democratic National Convention, Obama’s contract should be renewed.
The share of undecided voters is 6 percent in the Buckeye State, and 5 percent in Florida and Virginia, according to the poll, and more than 80 percent of voters in those states have firmly made up their minds.
“This is an electorate that pretty much is now all about, from the campaign standpoint, mobilization. Persuasion is going to take a second seat right now,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, in an interview with NBC News. “This is about getting your base out, not about appealing to a shrinking middle.”
Since 1944, Ohio has gone with the winner of the presidential election every year except 1960.
Obama and Vice President Biden have lavished attention on Ohio, visiting frequently and emphasizing what they view as the success of the auto bailout and Obama’s role in the state’s lowered unemployment rate — 8.6 percent in January 2009 and 7.2 percent now.
Romney’s path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency is much steeper than Obama’s. The former Massachusetts governor must win two of these three battleground states; Obama can win just one and keep the White House with victories in Colorado and Nevada.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll this week shows Obama leading Romney among registered voters by 50 percent to 44 percent, although the margin narrows to 49 percent to 48 percent among likely voters.
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