A new Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald/Bay News 9 poll in Florida shows Sen. Bill Nelson (D) leads Rep. Connie Mack IV (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 48% to 40%, a three-point shift in the Democrat’s favor since July.

A video shows Vice President Biden can’t stop laughing after his wife was misinterpreted by a crowd.

[Read more…]

In 2011, Mitt and Ann Romney paid $1,935,708 in taxes on $13,696,951 in mostly investment income, an effective tax rate of 14.1%.

Romney could have paid a lower tax rate in 2011 due to large charitable contributions, but voluntarily limited them — and paid more taxes as a result — to conform to his previous statements that he has paid at least 13% in taxes each year.

Flashback: Mitt Romney told ABC News in July that “frankly if I had paid more than are legally due I don’t think I’d be qualified to become president.”

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is undermining Mitt Romney’s message in the key battleground state, Roll Call reports.

Said Boehner: “One of the things that probably worked against Romney in Ohio is the fact that Gov. Kasich has done such a good job of fixing government regulations in the state, attracting new businesses to the state, so our unemployment rate in Ohio is lower than the national average.”

Herman Cain jabbed Mitt Romney while talking to the Gainesville Sun saying that he would have been doing better if he was the Republican presidential nominee, claiming he’d probably have a “substantial lead” on President Obama at this point.

Said Cain: “The reason is quite simple: I have some depth to my ideas.”

Jonathan Chait: “Mitt Romney’s campaign has been notable for its reliance on President Obama’s gaffes. It built its entire convention theme around Obama’s slightly disjointed disquisition about infrastructure (‘You didn’t build that’) and has, at other points, seized gleefully on such lines as ‘the private sector is doing fine’ and ‘our plan worked,’ Joe Biden’s ‘chains’ metaphor, among others.”

“Yesterday, two gaffe-exploitation attempts collided somewhat awkwardly, when Romney had to interrupt his message about Obama’s 1998 gaffe endorsing neoliberal redistribution to seize upon a fresh new gaffe in which Obama said change has to come from outside Washington.”

“Has a presidential campaign been more reliant upon seizing on its opponent’s words (and wrenching them out of context)? This appears to be the hallmark of the Romney 2012 campaign method.”

Here are the today’s swing state polls, updated as needed throughout the day:

Colorado: Obama 48%, Romney 45% (Purple Strategies)

Florida: Romney 48%, Obama 47% (Purple Strategies)

Michigan: Obama 39%, Romney 30% (Michigan State)

North Carolina: Obama 46%, Romney 43% (HPU/Fox)

North Carolina: Obama 48%, Romney 46% (Purple Strategies)

Ohio: Obama 48%, Romney 44% (Purple Strategies)

Pennsylvania: Obama 48%, Romney 47% (Susquehanna)

Virginia: Obama 46%, Romney 43% (Purple Strategies)

Finally, a poll from Arizona suggests it might be a swing state as well.

Arizona: Romney 48%, Obama 45% (Purple Strategies)

Politico: “Mitt Romney was expected to use a billionaire-fueled fundraising juggernaut to crush President Barack Obama’s once vaunted small-donor army. But things haven’t gone according to plan.”

“Headed into the home stretch of the 2012 presidential race, it is Obama who looks to have an edge, thanks to an awakening donor base, aggressive summer spending on ads and ground game, and a Romney hoarding strategy that left him with plenty of cash in the bank, but not much to show for it.”

New York Times: “Mitt Romney entered the final months of the presidential campaign with a cash balance of just $35 million, racing to find new large donors and rally low-dollar contributors in August even while he raised tens of millions of dollars for the Republican Party.”

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign “gave out about $200,000 in bonuses to senior employees just after the Republican National Convention, which ended with the candidate not getting much of a bounce in the polls,” Politico reports.

“Social Security right now is a collectivist system, it’s a welfare transfer system.”

— Rep. Paul Ryan in a 2005 audio recording talking about privatizing the “socialist-based system” of social security — or as he jokingly said he preferred, “personalizing” it.

[Read more…]

Jon Karl reports that at one recent Texas fundraiser for Mitt Romney, a donor told the GOP nominee, “I am happy to write a check, but why are you here? Shouldn’t you be in Ohio?”

Nate Silver points out that a simple average of the four national tracking polls put President Obama 3.4 points ahead of Mitt Romney, essentially no different than a week ago, when the same technique gave him a 3.5-point lead.

“It’s at least possible that Mr. Obama’s bounce was fading — but that the attention to Mr. Romney’s ’47 percent’ comments has since given Mr. Obama renewed momentum. It will take a few more days before we can come to any sort of conclusion about this, however, especially since some of the tracking polls use long field periods and have only conducted a fraction of their interviews since Mr. Romney’s remarks were uncovered.”