Barack Obama, Swing State | featured news

A new poll shows President Barack Obama opening a double-digit lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney in two of the nation's three largest swing states.

The recent shifts in the polls may be less about Mitt Romney than they are about President Obama. We have been documenting for a few days how Obama has consistently risen in polls of swing states — in many of them by several points — to the point where Romney trails basically everywhere that matters.

"If he [Obama] didn't come through and give that vote and say, 'Yes we have got to save Chrysler. We have to save GM. We've got to do this,' all this Sterling Heights would have been gone, would have been dead."

A new Fox News poll shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney in three key states: Ohio, Florida and Virginia. The president leads by 7 percentage points in both Ohio (49%-42%) and Virginia (50%-43%), Fox says. In Florida -- where Obama campaigns today --- he leads Romney, 49%-44%.

The good news for Mitt Romney: He remains within striking distance of President Obama. The bad news: His latest misstep could upend that.

New polls in four battleground states show President Obama holding a lead of 5 to 7 points over Republican nominee Mitt Romney, reinforcing the national surveys that indicate that the incumbent gained ground with his convention last week.

President Obama leads Mitt Romney in Ohio while the two candidates are neck-and-neck in Florida and Wisconsin, according to a new poll of the three swing states. The polling by Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News shows the race tightening in Florida and Wisconsin. Romney is getting a small boost in these states from his selection of Rep. Paul Ryan, who hails from Wisconsin.

Restore Our Future, the super PAC backing Mitt Romney, released a new radio ad Friday knocking President Barack Obama for his handling of the economy and calling into question the Obama campaign's repeated attacks on Romney and Bain Capital. The new spot, titled "Imagine," is part of a $1 million radio ad campaign and will air from July 27 to Aug. 2 across swing states Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Nationally, the economic picture is decidedly dismal — a sullen state of affairs that has led many political observers to conclude that President Obama is an underdog in his bid for a second term.
But in the 12 (or so) swing states — where Democrats and Republicans will spend the lion’s share of their time and money in the 100 or so days between now and Nov. 6 — the economic picture is considerably sunnier.

The nation's unemployment rate of 8.2 percent may sink President Barack Obama's re-election bid, but one detail brightens his hopes. About 10 battleground states will decide the election, and seven of them have employment levels that beat the U.S. average.