Mark Halperin: “Here’s the most likely path for Romney, sans Ohio: He wins the McCain states, plus Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Colorado, Nevada, and Iowa — losing New Hampshire and Wisconsin, along with Ohio.”

“Obviously, that means winning six of the nine battleground states, many of which still show significant deficits for the challenger, who also does not boast the same long-built ground game machinery as the incumbent. This map makes two things clear: Romney’s debate performance hasn’t solved his Electoral College problem, and/but his route to 270 is so, so much harder if he can’t win Ohio.”

Marc Ambinder notes that historically vice presidential debates have rarely been game changers but notes “one caveat that occurs to me here is that technology and information consumption patterns have shifted to A-gear so much so that if the political class wants to force the public to make more of a big deal about the vice presidential ticket than they might, then perhaps a rousing debate from Ryan or Biden will shift things. But I doubt it.”

John Cassidy: “A strong performance by the Vice-President won’t repair all of the damage that Obama did last week–only Obama himself can do that. But it would help to stabilize things for the Democrats, and to quell the near panic that has broken out in some quarters. Conversely, if Paul Ryan gets the better of Biden, and particularly if Biden provides the media with some sort of gaffe to feed upon, the Democrats will have to endure another week of negative headlines and self-flagellation. By the time Obama gets onstage in Hempstead next Thursday, his campaign could be in serious trouble.”

Nate Silver looks at the fact that Mitt Romney is about tied — or perhaps even has a small lead — in the average of national polls right now while President Obama leads in the key swing states.

“There are some reasons to prefer national polls to state polls. First, they probably come from slightly stronger polling firms on average and they often have larger sample sizes, although there are exceptions on either side. Second, they’re more straightforward to interpret — especially if you want to derive an estimate of how the national popular vote will break down.”

“Our research suggests, however, that when the state polls and the national polls seem to tell a different story about the state of the campaign, the state polls sometimes (not always, by any means) get it right… One is just that there are more of them… So even if the typical state poll is slightly less accurate the typical national poll, the collective sum of state polls may be more worthwhile than the collective sum of national polls. Also, the state polls come from a more diverse set of polling firms, and may provide for a greater degree of independence.”

Mitt Romney’s campaign “is relying on ground-game and social-media strategies that aides believe have been underestimated,” Roll Call reports.

“Romney aides and GOP strategists familiar with the campaign’s social media outreach and voter turnout operation said they expect President Barack Obama’s effort on each front to be every bit as technologically advanced and effective as it was in 2008. The difference, Republicans contend, is the Romney campaign has built competitive get-out-the-vote and social media programs, eliminating 2008’s strategic deficit the GOP faced against Obama.”

In Reuters/Ipsos surveys conducted over nine months, “a startling 35% of households have suffered a major economic setback in the past four years. They have either lost a house to foreclosure or are in the middle of losing one. Or they have lost a job or taken a pay cut. Almost 96,000 adults were polled.”

“Strikingly, many don’t seem to blame the president. They divide about evenly on which candidate has the better plan for the economy: Forty percent pick Obama and 42 percent choose Romney.”

Joe Klein: “When I asked several close Obama associates about the President’s reluctance to sell his policies, they admitted their frustration. They said he hates doing things that he considers transparently political. He hates the idea of inviting a bunch of pols over to the White House for a drink or a movie, because they’d see it as an obvious bribe…. He hates the notion of launching precooked zingers in debates. He hates debates, period, with their false air of portent and stage-managed aggression. These are in­convenient prejudices if you want to be re-elected…. Now that Mitt Romney has established himself as something other than an automaton, Barack Obama is going to have to come clean, descend from the mountaintop and make his best case for keeping the job.”

A new Pew Research poll finds 40% of those surveyed expect Paul Ryan to perform better in tonight’s vice presidential debate, while 34% expect Joe Biden to do better.

First Read: “Biden has more pressure on him going into the debate, but Ryan has the
higher expectations, especially among base conservatives. And a
question: Just how many will tune in to the debate? We’re putting the
over-under at 40 million. Remember, there are two MLB playoff games
tonight, as well as Steelers-Titans NFL football game.”

In an interview with Extra, Sarah Palin refused to rule out a future run for the White House.

Said Pailin: “I’m not sure what the future holds… Que sera, sera,”

Mike Allen: “Conversations with advisers to the V.P. candidates suggest that both will be very aggressive tonight. One of Vice President Biden’s missions is to calm down President Obama’s supporters — particularly the progressives who, in the view of the White House, have overreacted to the disappointing first debate. Biden plans to do that by making Ryan answer for his own proposals, as well as Romney’s. The V.P. wants to stay more on offense than on defense, and expose and explain contrasts. His style is to demonstrate a mastery of specifics, then step back in ‘Regular Joe’ style to relate to viewers. His prep team in Wilmington, Del., included Ron Klain and Bruce Reed. His mock debates were formal, but aides dressed casually.”

“Paul Ryan has been watching game film of Biden, including the ’08 debate with Sarah Palin and the V.P.’s Meet the Press appearance in May, to try to get in his head. Since the Republican convention, Ryan has been buried in a pair of debate-prep binders – one for foreign issues, one for domestic. As Ryan rewrote and edited his responses, the drafts were sent to Boston for fact-checking, then added to the binders. Ryan plans to call out the President and Vice President for what he considers mischaracterizations of GOP positions, and will argue that he has worked hard on these measures, and knows they are being mis-described.”

The Week: 6 ways Joe Biden can win the vice presidential debate

“It’s a nervous situation… this is his first time. Joe Biden’s been doing this since the 1800s.”

— RNC Chair Reince Priebus, quoted by National Journal, lowering expectations for Paul Ryan in tonight’s vice presidential debate.

New York Times: “Inside Mitt Romney’s campaign headquarters over the past few days, the data pouring in was unmistakable. Aides scouring the results of focus groups and national polls found that undecided voters watching the presidential debate in Denver seemed startled when the Republican candidate portrayed all year by Democrats — the ultraconservative, unfeeling capitalist — did not materialize.”

“The voters, they discovered, consistently reserved their highest marks for moments when Mr. Romney sounded bipartisan and moderate, two themes he has long played down on the campaign trail but seemed to take pains to showcase this week with centrist-sounding statements on taxes, abortion and immigration.”

Washington Post: “What remains to be seen is which Romney will be judged as the real one
by voters. Will they consider his flexibility disturbing evidence that
he lacks principles or a reassuring signal that he would not govern as
an ideologue?”

Here are the latest polls from the battleground states:

Florida: Obama 49%, Romney 45% (University of North Florida)

Nevada: Obama 47%, Romney 46% (SurveyUSA)

Nevada: Obama 51%, Romney 47% (Public Policy Polling)

New Hampshire: Obama 48%, Romney 48% (Rasmussen)

Ohio: Obama 45%, Romney 44% (SurveyUSA)

Ohio: Obama 46%, Romney 42% (Newsmax/Zogby)

Pennsylvania: Obama 51%, Romney 46% (Rasmussen)

Pennsylvania: Obama 50%, Romney 42% (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Wisconsin: Obama 51%, Romney 49% (Rasmussen)

Here are the latest national polls, updated as needed:

Fox News: Romney 46%, Obama 45%

Gallup: Romney 48%, Obama 48%

IBD/TIPP: Romney 49%, Obama 44%

Rasmussen: Romney 48%, Obama 47%

Reuters/Ipsos: Romney 45%, Obama 44%

Major Garrett reports the first batch of Obama internal polls came back from key swing states today and “revealed that Obama was not in free fall, as some feared, but that his support has returned to where it was in July and August.”

“Internal Obama polling data show that all swing states have tightened up and that Romney is within the margin of error in states like Ohio and Virginia and Florida. It’s now a dogfight across the swing-state battlefield and any sense of pre-debate complacency that some Obama hands feared was creeping into both turnout and fundraising has vanished.”

Obama to ABC News: “What’s important is the fundamentals of what this race is about haven’t changed.”

Mitt Romney vowed he would govern as a “pro-life president” after telling a newspaper yesterday that he wouldn’t seek legislation affecting access to abortion, NBC News reports.

Said Romney: “I think I’ve said time and again. I’m a pro-life candidate. I’ll be a pro-life president. The actions I’ll take immediately are to remove funding for Planned Parenthood. It will not be part of my budget. And also I’ve indicated I’ll reverse the Mexico City position of the president. I will reinstate the Mexico City policy.”

The mother of a Navy SEAL killed in the attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya told WHDH-TV that she thought Mitt Romney was using her son’s death for political advantage.

Said Barbara Doherty: “I don’t trust Romney. He shouldn’t make my son’s death part of his political agenda. It’s wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama.”