Romney heads to swing states as polls show Obama in lead

Republican challenger Mitt Romney, slipping in the polls in critical swing states, has begun a renewed campaign focus in three of them.

Yesterday, Mr Romney held a rally in Colorado, before heading to Ohio for a three-day bus tour, ending with a stop in 
Virginia.

President Barack Obama, who was not campaigning yesterday, won all three of those states in the 2008 election that swept him into the White House. With about six weeks remaining before the election, the handful of swing or “battleground” states seem likely to determine the outcome of what has been an extremely close contest between Mr Obama and Mr Romney.

Those states become even more critical to the Republican candidate, as recent polling shows Mr Obama opening a lead in many of them.

While most states reliably vote for the candidate of one party or the other, the swing states – Colorado, Ohio, Virginia and five others – are seen as toss-ups.

Mr Obama entered the weekend with polls showing him in a near tie with Mr Romney nationally. But a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist poll showed the president has leads among likely voters of eight percentage points in Iowa and five points each in Colorado and Wisconsin, all battleground states. Polls published earlier this week pointed to leads for Mr Obama in Virginia and Ohio. While he and Mr Romney are neck-and-neck in North Carolina, Mr Obama has an edge in Florida and New Hampshire.

With those factors pressing hard on Mr Romney, he is intensifying his swing-state campaigning to counter criticism from Republican heavyweights that his bid for the nation’s highest office is mismanaged and misdirected.