Three fresh battleground state polls were made available by polling firms on Tuesday, all three in the states considered important to President Obama and Mitt Romney.
Results by Public Policy Polling show that President Obama has a growing lead in Virginia and a tiny advantage in North Carolina. Rasmussen Reports, on the other hand, gives Mitt Romney a small lead over Obama in Florida.
Here's a breakdown of the polling by state and a closer look at additional questions asked by each of the pollsters.
Virginia
The Old Dominion state has provided President Obama with a number of favorable ratings, including his job performance score card. Job approval is positive, with 49 percent responding saying they think he's doing a good job. Forty-seven percent disapprove of his performance, while 4 percent aren't sure.
By contrast, Mitt Romney has only a 38 percent favorability score, and the opinion of 51 percent of those polled was unfavorable. Eleven percent were still undecided.
When put head-to-head in a hypothetical contest, Obama has an 8-point lead at 50 percent to 42 percent voting for Obama. Even if Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell were the Vice Presidential nominee, Obama would still win 50 percent to a slightly better 43 percent.
North Carolina
The same pollster saw a much weaker advantage given to the president, though he has improved his lead by two points since last month's poll by PPP. Romney fell behind Obama in the recently released survey, with Obama up 47 percent to Romney's 46 percent. The same people polled said that by 48 percent to 46 percent they had voted for Senator John McCain for president in 2008.
Florida
The news is better for Romney in Florida, a crucial state for an electoral college victory. In the Sunshine state, Rasmussen Reports says Romney has a 1-point lead at 46 percent to 45 percent among those polled. Five percent prefer someone else, they said, while another four percent remain undecided regarding whom they would vote for.
Given that Florida has 29 electoral votes, Virginia 13, and North Carolina 15, Romney can't exactly dismiss the more northerly of the southern states, but were he to win Florida and still lose the other two, he'd have the numeric advantage.
Shawn Humphrey is a former contributor to The Flint Journal and lives near Washington in Gaithersburg, Md.
