National polls over the last 10 days have been brutal for President Obama's reelection hopes. Since his first presidential debate against Republican challenger Mitt Romney, Obama has experienced an unprecedented turn of fortune as Romney gained ground, eventually losing the lead to Romney in recent polls.
And there are few signs Romney's ascension is slowing.
Romney is up in a number of crucial swing states, and as of this week looks poised to take Florida, Colorado, Virginia, North Carolina, and possibly Ohio.
In national polls, Romney is up 2 points with likely voters in the latest Gallup poll, 49 percent to Obama's 47 percent.
A Rasmussen poll has Romney up by 1 point, 49-48 percent.
And a poll released by Google Consumer Surveys puts Romney up 4.6 points.
However, an IBD/TIPP poll has Obama up by a hair, 0.7 percent, though RealClearPolitics calls that a tie.
In a convoluted bit of data, an IPSOS poll shows Obama gaining ground against Romney, rising a point to 45 percent, though he still trails Romney's 46 percent.
However, this poll contains more post-vice-presidential debate responses than the other polls, so Obama's relative gain may be indicative of the beginnings of a comeback.
If the vice-presidential debates, which are widely considered to have been a good showing for Vice President Joe Biden and the Democratic platform, do have a measureable impact on the national polls, it will begin to appear in the next few days.
While the damage to the Obama campaign from the first presidential debate was immediately apparent, polls only really started to move five days later.
Five days after the vice-presidential debate will be the second presidential debate, so the public, and the polls, may have already moved on to speculation about the winner of that match.
Gallup also shows Obama's approval rating dropping two points to 48 percent. In a typical election year, an approval rating that high would point to reelection, but this year is anything but typical.
Consumer confidence is also up, and unemployment is at a nearly four-year low, but it remains to be seen how that will translate to votes at the ballot box.
With sliding poll numbers, the Obama campaign will need to focus even more on increasing turnout. While Obama trails Romney in polls among likely voters, he is still in the lead among registered voters.
Unfortunately for the Democrats, young and minority voters are less likely to show up at the polls, and in many states, voter registration efforts have already shut down, as deadlines have passed.
Still, both candidates have two more debates before the election.
While conventional wisdom says debates can't heavily influence election results, the last round proved that sentiment wrong. If one debate can make such a marked difference, what will two hold in store for the polls?
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