Washington (CNN) -- With the conventions fading into the rearview mirror and the first presidential debate fast approaching, new polls in crucial swing states suggest that GOP nominee Mitt Romney's road to the White House is becoming a more challenging ride.
Polls are a snapshot of how people feel right now. The election is still 6˝ weeks away, with three presidential debates and one vice-presidential debate between now and then that have the potential to change people's minds. But the numbers in many of these new surveys seem to favor President Barack Obama over Romney.
"Throughout the spring and summer, Romney advisers would look at the mostly dead-even polls and tell me, 'I'd a lot rather be in our position than theirs,'" said CNN chief political correspondent Candy Crowley. "They don't say that now, not because it's over -- clearly whatever edge the president has can be erased. They don't say that anymore because as fall opens, advantage Obama."
CNN's Polling Center
Romney was asked about the new surveys in an interview Friday that will appear on CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday.
"Actually, we're tied in the polls. We're all within a margin of error. We bounce around week to week, day to day. There are some days we're up. There are some days we're down," Romney said. "We've got a campaign which is tied with an incumbent president of the United States."
To win the White House, Romney needs to win all the states that Sen. John McCain carried in 2008, plus grab back about half a dozen that Obama turned from red to blue four years ago.
Romney campaigned Thursday in Florida, where two nonpartisan live operator polls conducted over the past two weeks both indicate Obama has a five-point advantage, which is within the surveys' sampling errors. Both the NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist and Fox News polls have the race at 49%-44%. Other, partisan surveys released since the end of the Democratic convention suggest a closer contest. Florida's 29 electoral votes are the biggest catch of the nine or so battleground states that both campaigns are heavily contesting.
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Obama's foreign policy approval drops In Ohio, an NBC/WSJ/Marist poll and a Fox News survey each have the president holding a seven-point lead, while an American Research Group survey shows Obama with a two-point edge, well within that poll's sampling error.
And in Virginia, a Washington Post poll indicates Obama leading by eight points, while a Fox News survey shows the president up by seven. According to a Quinnipiac University/CBS News/New York Times poll, Obama holds a four-point advantage, which is within that survey's sampling error.
President George W. Bush won all three of those states in his 2004 re-election, but Obama painted them blue four years ago.
In Wisconsin, home of Romney's running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, a Marquette Law School poll indicates the Democratic ticket with a 14-point lead over the Republican duo. But a Quinnipiac/CBS/NYT poll indicates a smaller six-point advantage for the president, and Obama is up by five points in an NBC/WSJ/Marist poll.
http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/23/politics/battleground-polls/index.html
