First truth: this race will most assuredly tighten again and polls are indeed see-saws. But right now President Barack Obama is on the rebound with NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls showing him hitting 50% in the swing states of Colorado, Iowa and Wisconsin:
President Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney in Colorado, Iowa and Wisconsin, reaching the key 50 percent support threshold in all three battlegrounds, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls of these states.
In both Colorado and Wisconsin, Obama is ahead by 5 points among likely voters (including those learning toward a candidate), 50 percent to 45 percent.
And in Iowa, the president’s edge over Romney is 8 points, 50 percent to 42 percent.Among a wider sample of registered voters, Obama’s lead is even larger – 6 points in Colorado, 8 in Wisconsin and 11 in Iowa.
AND:
While Obama still hasn’t closed the deal, says Marist College pollster Lee Miringoff, “The advantage is his in all three states.”
He adds, “It is very important in an election when you start closing in on 50 [percent]. In politics that is a big number.”
The results from these new polls are similar to the NBC/WSJ/Marist surveys of Florida, Ohio and Virginia that were released last week. Those showed Obama ahead in all three battlegrounds. And they’re consistent with this week’s national NBC/WSJ poll (conducted by different pollsters) that found Obama up by 5 points among likely voters, 50 percent to 45 percent.
And on favorability:
These new surveys – conducted after the political firestorm over last week’s attacks on U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt, and during the melee over a leaked video of Romney talking about the “47 percent” of Americans who are dependent on government and believe they are victims – also show the Republican’s favorability rating in an unenviable place.
A plurality of likely voters view Romney in a negative light in all three states. In Colorado, it’s 43 percent favorable to 50 percent unfavorable; in Iowa, it’s 42 percent to 50 percent; and in Wisconsin, it’s 43 percent to 46 percent.
By contrast, out of last week’s polls in Florida, Ohio and Virginia, just one of them – Ohio – found Romney’s favorable/unfavorable rating under water.
Meanwhile, Obama’s favorable/unfavorable scores in Colorado (51 percent to 45 percent), Iowa (53 percent to 42 percent), and Wisconsin (51 percent to 44 percent) are all above water.
Here’s the Pollster average of polls nationally:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.