Barack Obama,  Mitt Romney,  Polling

The USA Today / Gallup Poll Has Romney Leading Obama by 4 Points

USA Today Gallup Presidential Poll for October 15, 2012

According to the latest USA Today / Gallup Presidential Poll.

Mitt Romney leads President Obama by four percentage points among likely voters in the nation’s top battlegrounds, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, and he has growing enthusiasm among women to thank.

As the presidential campaign heads into its final weeks, the survey of voters in 12 crucial swing states finds female voters much more engaged in the election and increasingly concerned about the deficit and debt issues that favor Romney. The Republican nominee now ties the president among women who are likely voters, 48%-48%, while he leads by 12 points among men.

The battle for women, which was apparent in the speakers spotlighted at both political conventions this summer, is likely to help define messages the candidates deliver at the presidential debate Tuesday night and in the TV ads they air during the final 21 days of the campaign. As a group, women tend to start paying attention to election contests later and remain more open to persuasion by the candidates and their ads.

That makes women, especially blue-collar “waitress moms” whose families have been hard-hit by the nation’s economic woes, the quintessential swing voters in 2012’s close race.

The conventional wisdom is that President Obama will be the aggressor at tomorrow night’s town-hall style Presidential debate. But, there is risk to that approach, especially with women.

In any case, Mitt Romney is in far better shape on the eve of the second Presidential debate than he was before the first.

Stay tuned…..