The Week looks at four ways he might defuse the crisis that threatens to derail his campaign.

A new Maine People’s Resource Center poll finds Angus King (I) is maintaining a sizable lead over Charlie Summers (R) and Cynthia Dill (D) in the U.S. Senate race.

King leads with with 44%, followed by Summers at 28% and Dill at 15%.

A new Public Policy Polling survey finds King leading with 43%, followed by Summers at 35% and Dill at 14%.

The Economist: “Historically it has been the Democrats, not the Republicans, who were viewed as a loose collection of interest groups rather than a cohesive movement. (Hence Will Rogers famous joke: ‘I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.’) If you went to the parties’ conventions, it was clear from the delegate demographics that the GOP is still more culturally cohesive than the Democrats. Republicans are basically one group — suburban and rural white Christians who are mostly middle class and wealthy — while Democrats are a disparate bunch.”

“But ideologically, and in terms of their economic interests, the Democrats are actually more unified.”

The Week puts together five signs for Mitt Romney and his supporters to feel optimistic about their chances in the November election.

Amy Walter: “Almost every candidate has a rough patch. But, the ones that pull out of them have one thing in common: candidate skill. It’s what got Bill Clinton through Paula Jones and Obama through Jeremiah Wright. Romney, however, just doesn’t have those kinds of skills. A speech, a press conference or series of rallies isn’t going to help. In fact, it’s more likely to hurt. Instead, he’s going to need an event — planned or unexpected — to turn around his fortunes.”

The latest AP-GfK poll shows President Obama barely edging Mitt Romney nationally among likely voters, 47% to 46%.

Key finding: “The poll results vividly underscore the importance that turnout will
play in determining the victor in Campaign 2012: Among all adults, Obama
has a commanding lead, favored by 52 percent of Americans to just 37
percent for Romney. Yet among those most likely to vote, the race is
drum tight.”

The Reuters/Ipsos poll shows Obama ahead by four points, 47% to 43%.

Mark Halperin: “Make no mistake, the President still has a major and vital advantage in the Electoral College. For Mitt Romney to win, he is going to need to triumph in states where he is now behind and even some local Republicans say victory seems a reach. Given recent state public and private polling, it is worth asking: Can Romney get to 270 without winning Ohio or Virginia, two states previously thought of as must-wins, but where Obama seems to have a solid lead.”

Peggy Noonan: “I think there is a broad and growing feeling now, among Republicans, that this thing is slipping out of Romney’s hands.”

John McCormack: “The reason such remarks keep slipping out of Mitt Romney’s mouth is not
that Romney wants to wage a class war against lower-income Americans.
The likely problem is that Mitt Romney is not a conservative–or at
least wasn’t a conservative until late in life–but he is running for
president as the nominee of the conservative party on a conservative
platform. So he has trouble defending conservative ideas. And when he
sells himself to conservatives, he sometimes comes across as a
right-wing caricature.”

The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA Action uses footage from the now infamous hidden camera video to hit Mitt Romney on his 47% line.

[Read more…]

Mark McKinnon: “I’ve been asked how Romney turns things around at this point. I’ve been a consistent voice warning against writing off his campaign in September. Because I’ve been there before when people wrote off the Bush campaign in 2000.”

“But, now I honestly don’t know what Romney can do to win support from the voters he needs to gain a majority. I thought the debates would be an opportunity, but he has dug his hole so deeply now, I don’t know if he can pull himself out. Does he get up and say, ‘I was just kidding. I don’t see half of America as victims. I just needed to raise some money, and I got a little carried away talking to the 1 percent.'”

A WBUR poll in Massachusetts voters finds challenger Elizabeth Warren (D) leading Sen. Scott Brown (R) by five points among likely voters, 45% to 40%.

It’s the fourth poll in four days showing Warren with the lead.

A new University of Connecticut-Hartford Courant poll in Connecticut shows Rep. Chris Murphy (D) just ahead of Linda McMahon (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 37% to 33%, but with 29% still undecided.

A new Quinnipiac University/New York Times/CBS News poll in Wisconsin finds Tammy Baldwin (D) locked in a tight race with former Gov. Tommy Thompson (R) for U.S. Senate, 47% to 47%, with 6% still undecided.

A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds President Obama leads Mitt Romney nationally among likely voters, 50% to 45%.

Key finding: Obama and Romney are tied, 43% to 43%, on which candidate would do better on the economy.

Said pollster Peter Hart: “Simply put, if Romney doesn’t win on dealing with the economy, he doesn’t win.”

The survey also gives Obama his highest job approval since March at 50%.

Coming next week: The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W. Bush to Barack Obama by Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor.

“If somebody is dumb enough to ask me to go to political convention and say something, they’re gonna have to take what they get.”

— Clint Eastwood, quoted by TMZ, responding to criticisms of his speech at the Republican convention.