Presidential Polls: Mitt Romney Leads Gallup Poll By Seven Points, Obama Still Leads Swing States

Presidential polls were good for Mitt Romney on Thursday. They were good for Barack Obama too.

As the bump from Romney’s strong performance in the first presidential debate levels out, the race for president in 2012 has settled in to be a very close affair with each candidate leading depending on the polling.

Perhaps the best sign for Mitt Romney is that he was able to extend his lead in the Gallup daily tracking poll, a snapshot of the national voting sentiment. One day after extending his Gallup lead to six points, Romney was able to again increase his standing and now leads 52 percent to 45 percent.

Barack Obama sees good signs in presidential polls as well, as a separate Gallup poll shows him with a 50 percent approval rating, an important factor for Election Day. A series of polls from the firm PPP also showed that Obama maintains his lead on the state level, leading important swing states like Nevada and Wisconsin. Obama has also consistently out polled Romney in Ohio, which pollsters are increasingly seeing as the key point to the election. Win Ohio, win the White House.

But presidential polls have yet to account for the second presidential debate, noted Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight, an election blog of the New York Times. The site analyzes a number of presidential polls to create national projections, and, after holding a close to 80 percent chance of winning the election throughout the summer, Obama has seen his likelihood of winning drop after the first debate. He still holds a clear advantage, however, with a close to 66 percent chance of winning the election.