We have a lot of new polls in today, many from key pollsters like Marist and Quinnipiac, and the numbers taken as a whole are favorable to Obama who continues to lead in most of the swing states.
Here are the numbers, followed by my analysis.
Remember, I'll be tweeting my thoughts on the VP debate live tonight, so be sure to follow me on Twitter.
* OHIO: Obama 51%, Romney 45% -- Romney +2% since 10 days ago (NBC/WSJ)
* OHIO: Obama 48%, Romney 47% -- No change since 1 week ago (Rasmussen)
* FLORIDA: Obama 48%, Romney 47% -- No change from previous poll (NBC/WSJ)
* VIRGINIA: Romney 48%, Obama 47% -- Romney +3% since 10 days ago (NBC/WSJ)
* VIRGINIA: Obama 51%, Romney 46% -- Obama +1% since 3 weeks ago (Quinnipiac)
* COLORADO: Romney 48%, Obama 47% -- Romney +2% since 3 weeks ago (Quinnipiac)
* WISCONSIN: Obama 50%, Romney 47% -- Romney +3% since 3 weeks ago (Quinnipiac)
* NORTH CAROLINA: Romney 51%, Obama 48% -- Obama +1% since 1 week ago (Rasmussen)
* NEVADA: Obama 47%, Romney 45% -- No previous poll (Suffolk)
Ohio remains a puzzle that the Romney campaign is struggling to solve. According to the NBC/WSJ/Marist poll of Ohio, which has Obama up 6%, Democrats are dominating early voting. 63% of early voters have been Democrats, a massive figure and, if true, is going to make it extremely difficult for Romney to win. Without Ohio, things become very tough for Romney. Mark Halperin, a very well-connected political journalist for TIME, seemed to insinuate this morning that the Romney campaign is looking for ways to get to 270 electoral votes without Ohio in fear that they may not be able to win there. The main pathway they've come up with is to win Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa while losing New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Ohio. Pulling off wins in all those states, particularly Nevada and Iowa, will be very tough for Romney.
The issue for Romney in Ohio is that after the absolute best week of his campaign, the type of week he is unlikely to have again, he is still behind in the state. It is unlikely he will be at this high a high again in the final month, meaning there just may not be enough swayable people in Ohio to get his vote total above that of Obama's -- particularly if these early voting numbers are accurate and Obama already has a large lead.
This is the same argument I've been making in North Carolina, only in Romney's favor. Obama was able to pull into a tie in North Carolina at the absolute high point of his campaign two weeks ago. If you can't lead in a state during your highest point, it's unlikely you're going to win it when things settle down a bit.
The situation in Virginia is another interesting one. NBC/WSJ/Marist have Romney up by 1% there, but Quinnipiac has Obama up by 5% in a poll that included Thursday and Friday of last week (the two worst days of polling for Obama all year). At this point, it's hard to get a gauge on where Virginia stands, and we'll probably need to see more polling before reaching any conclusions.
On the whole though, the swing state polls that we've seen this week do seem to point to a significant advantage for Obama in the electoral college when compared to the national vote. While the national vote is basically tied, Obama remains ahead in most of the swing states following the worst week of his campaign. This has to be taken as a positive for Obama -- he has survived the past week and remains in an advantageous position to win the electoral college.
The polls should give a boost to Democratic supporters as we head into tonight's VP debate. I posted my preview of the VP debate earlier -- Biden's job will be to continue to try and rally the Democratic base like these polls probably started to do today. Ryan's job will be to not rock the boat and to not create wedges with Romney regarding their differences on things like abortion.
I'll be tweeting live thoughts during the debate tonight so be sure to follow me on Twitter and I'll be back afterwards with my full review of the debate.
Originally published at No We Can't Politics.