Remember, if these polls are correct, Mitt Romney was making headway just as the Bain Capital attacks were being ratcheted up and the media was focusing on an array of faux controversies. The environment can change as quickly as it takes to make a gaffe, of course, but the fact is, if you look at the internals of these polls, it looks like the Obama economy is finally catching up to the president.
Let???s start with Virginia. If Obama wins Virginia, Republicans can forget about the presidency. And in March, President Obama held a 50-42 percent lead over Romney in a Quinnipiac University poll. By June, Romney had whittled down that lead to 47-42 percent. Today, a new poll has the candidates deadlocked at 44-44 percent.
What should disturb the president's supporters are some of the internal numbers. Though Romney and Obama are tied,Virginia voters disapprove of Obama job performance by a 51-45 percent margin and 50-47 percent said he doesn't deserves a second term in office. It is unlikely, at this point, that economic numbers will be improving much before Nov. Clearly, many voters have not warmed to Romney, and perhaps they never will, but there are plenty of votes out there be had.
In the new national CBS/New York Times poll (entire poll here), the candidates are also statistically tied at 47-46. Obama's approval rating has dropped to 44 percent, with only 39 percent saying he's doing a good job on the economy - down five points since April.
Whereas once, Obama could blame George W. Bush for all the troubles of the world, 34 percent of those polled believe Obama now takes "significant" responsibility for the economy and 52 percent of independents say that Obama will "never improve" the economy.
A new NPR poll also finds Romney and Obama tied in battleground states, 46-46.
