Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney greets the crowd during a campaign stop in St. Petersburg, Florida.
New polls from a trio of battleground states reinforce what national polls have shown—that President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney are virtually tied.
The NBC News-Marist Poll released released Thursday has Obama with 46 percent to Romney's 45 percent in Colorado, Obama leading Romney 48 percent to 46 percent in Nevada, and the two men tied at 44 percent in Iowa.
Obama won all three states in 2008.
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Despite the tight numbers, the polls also indicate there's room for movement. According to the survey, 8 percent of voters in Colorado are undecided as well as 10 percent in Iowa.
"Both Obama and Romney are far from 50 percent in Iowa and have a lot of ground to cover," said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, in a release accompanying the poll results. "But Obama's supporters are less enthusiastic and less interested than Romney's and this poses a special problem for the incumbent president."
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And though the enthusiasm level of Obama's supporters in all the states surveyed is lower than that of Romney's, he leads the former Massachusetts governor among independents.
In Nevada and Colorado, Obama also clobbers Romney among Latino voters, who prefer him 66 percent to Romney's 21 percent in Colorado and 61 percent to 33 percent in Nevada. The GOP has hoped to made inroads with the key demographic, but according to these poll results they still have a ways to go.
The close contests also highlight how important turnout will be for the candidates—the closer the contest the more crucial each vote becomes.
Rebekah Metzler is a political writer for U.S. News & World Report. You can contact her at rmetzler@usnews.com or follow her on Twitter.
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