President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were all knotted up nationally in the days before Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) was added to the Republican ticket, according to a new poll released Monday.
The latest POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground poll shows Obama leading Romney by only one, 48 percent to 47 percent. Romney claims a slight edge on the question of which candidate would do a better job handling the economy, 49 percent to 44 percent, while Obama is widely considered to be the better candidate to stand up for the middle class, 54 percent to 40 percent.
Republican pollster Tarrange Group and Democratic firm Lake Research Partners conducted the poll on behalf of POLITICO and George Washington University August 5-9 using live phone interviews with 1,000 likely voters nationwide. Its margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.
The PollTracker Average currently shows Obama leading Romney, 48.4 percent to 42.4 percent. Obama opened up his solid national advantage last week with the release of three polls in which he led Romney by at least 7-points.
