WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s lead over Republican challenger Mitt Romney has narrowed to just 2 percentage points since Romney’s strong performance in their first debate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released yesterday. In more bad news for Obama, one in five voters said the Democrat’s performance in the contest in Denver on Wednesday made them feel more negative about him, while almost a third said they felt more positive about Romney.
The online poll conducted from Monday to Friday showed 46 percent of likely voters backed Obama, versus 44 percent for Romney. Obama had led by 48 to 43 percent in Thursday’s daily tracking poll, the first to include a day of interviews after the debate.
President Barack Obama hailed a drop in the US jobless rate to the lowest level since he took office, saying the country has “come too far to turn back now,” as he sought to recover from a lackluster debate performance against Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
A decline in unemployment to 7.8 percent in September, announced a month before Election Day, gave Obama an unexpected shine to the most vulnerable part of his presidential record - his economic stewardship - and offered him a chance to reset his re-election bid.
The positive news for the Democratic president came two days after he was widely judged the loser in his first presidential debate against Romney, who breathed new life into his own campaign.
“Today I believe that as a nation we are moving forward again,” Obama told an enthusiastic crowd at a campaign rally at George Mason University in Virginia. “More Americans entered the workforce, more people are getting jobs.”
“It’s a reminder that this country has come too far to turn back now,” he said. Romney had made the president’s failure to drive the jobless rate below eight percent a key plank in his campaign, so the drop to the lowest level since January 2009 could deprive him of some ammunition in the final sprint toward the November 6 election. Reuters
