2012 Presidential Election, Mitt Romney | featured news

Debate moderator Candy Crowley interjected during Mitt Romney's remarks in Tuesday's presidential debate, saying that President Obama "did in fact" call the attack on a U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya an act of terror the day after the incident.

USA TODAY's Paul Davidson, Tim Mullaney, Gregory Korte, Susan Davis and Aamer Madhani took a deeper look at some of the claims Obama and Romney made in the second debate.

Candy Crowley, the moderator for Tuesday’s second presidential debate, isn’t backing down. The CNN reporter and host said Monday that she intends to take an active part in the town-hall-style debate, despite efforts by the campaigns of President Obama and GOP nominee Mitt Romney to curtail her role.

For candidates who want to prepare for every possible question that could be thrown at them, the format for Tuesday night's presidential debate is slightly terrifying: It is a town hall-style debate, which means that the questions come from uncommitted voters. When political reporters are posing the questions, the candidates usually have a good idea what to expect. But when members of the public get the chance to weigh in, the candidates can sometimes face curve balls that leave them flummoxed.

The Obama campaign appears to be taking nearly every opportunity ahead of the second presidential debate to tell Americans what to expect from President Obama, while the Romney camp has remained essentially mum – a sharp contrast to the days before the first debate when the parallel strategy was to lower expectations.

The U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania has become "too close to call" three weeks before the election, while President Barack Obama's lead in the state has slipped from 12 to 4 percentage points after a disappointing debate performance, a Quinnipiac poll said on Tuesday.

President Barack Obama retained a slim lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney in the Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll on Monday, as he appeared to have stemmed the bleeding from his poor first debate.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign says it raised $170.4 million in September. The figure brings Romney's fundraising effort slightly behind President Barack Obama's $181 million haul for the month. It leaves Romney, the Republican Party and related groups with $191 million in the bank to spend during the final full month of the campaign.

Another poll, another close result between President Obama and Mitt Romney. Obama leads by a single point -- 49%-48% -- in the latest Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll released Monday morning, well within the margin of error. On the other hand, Romney leads 50%-48% in the poll's 10 top "battleground states:" Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The race between President Obama and Mitt
Romney is closer than ever, including the
measure that will decide it: The Electoral
College. Obama leads in states with 201 electoral
votes, according to state polling averages
compiled by the RealClearPolitics website. Romney leads in states with 191 electoral
votes.