Presidential Polls: Romney Continues Gains Nationwide, But Can’t Break Through In Swing States

Presidential polls show that Mitt Romney’s post-debate bounce is not going away anytime soon, but despite the gains he has made in nationwide polling the GOP candidate can’t seem to get over the hump in critical swing states.

After a strong debate performance last week in which he came out looking confident and aggressive to President Obama’s seemingly passionless defense of his positions, Mitt Romney saw large gains in presidential polls. He was able to wipe out deficits of five to six points in many polls, and pull ahead in some like the Gallup tracking poll.

Despite the campaign-saving performance in the debate, Mitt Romney is still having trouble breaking through the firewall Obama has built in several swing states, The Huffington Post noted.

In several key swing states, including Ohio and Virginia, Obama has been able to hold a slim but steady lead over Romney.

As The Huffington Post notes:

Six new statewide polls were released early Thursday morning by two prominent polling partnerships. NBC News, The Wall Street Journal and Marist College reported new surveys of Florida, Ohio and Virginia, and CBS News, The New York Times and Quinnipiac University produced new polls of Colorado, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The report later adds:

The new polls suggest Romney benefited from sharing the debate stage with Obama, leaving it with burnished leadership credentials. But swing state voters still harbor doubts about some of his positions, as well as his ability to relate to them.

Obama’s advantage in presidential polls is especially important in Ohio. A Marist poll there gave Obama a lead of six percentage points (51 to 45 percent), and without the state Mitt Romney has little chance of winning the electoral college. The Huffpost Pollster tracking model now shows Obama maintaining a three percentage point lead in Ohio, and the FiveThirtyEight model also has Obama with a more than 60 percent chance of winning Ohio.