A new Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney nationally, 50% to 43%.

Key finding: When asked if they were better off than you were four years ago, likely voters responded “almost exactly in thirds: in the poll, 31% say they are better off than four years ago, while 34% say they are worse off and 34% say they are about the same.”

Also important: “Overall, 48% say they believe the country is better off because Obama won in 2008, while 41% say the nation would be in a stronger position today if another candidate had won.”

Meanwhile, a Reason-Rupe/Princeton Survey shows Obama leading 52% to 45%.

“I think it puts a heavier burden on him in the debates to talk about what he meant.”

— Bill Clinton, in an interview on CNN, on Mitt Romney’s 47% remark.

Mitt Romney’s “path to victory is narrowing, new polling data suggest, presenting challenges for the Republican nominee at a moment when he is trying to rebound from a week of bad headlines by refocusing on federal spending,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

New York Times: “The state-by-state landscape facing Mr. Romney is more daunting than he expected by this stage in the contest. He anticipated, aides said, to be in a position of strength in at least some of the states that turned Democratic in 2008 for the first time in a generation, but few of them show signs of breaking decisively his way, and Mr. Obama still has more and clearer paths to 270 electoral votes.”

Reuters: “To have any hope of beating Obama, Romney must project a warmer image, analysts say.”

Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) “turned aggressor in his first debate clash” with rival Elizabeth Warren (D), “questioning her character for claiming to be Native American and scolding her for ‘scaring women’ to win votes,” the Boston Herald reports.

Said Brown: “She checked the box claiming she was a Native American, and clearly she’s not… When you are a United States senator, you have to pass a test, and that’s one of character and honesty and truthfulness. And I believe and others believe that she’s failed that test.”

Meanwhile, Warren “defended her family history and denied trying to get special treatment for her minority status, but largely avoided returning fire for much of the hourlong debate.”

“When you express an attitude that half the country considers itself victims, that somehow they want to be dependent on government, my thinking is, maybe you haven’t gotten around a lot.”

— President Obama, quoted by the New York Times.

New NBC News/WSJ/Marist Polls show President Obama leads Mitt Romney in the key battleground states of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Colorado.

Iowa: Obama 50%, Romney 42%

Wisconsin: Obama 50%, Romney 45%

Colorado: Obama 50%, Romney 45%

President Obama’s campaign released a new video made up entirely out-of-context clips of Mitt Romney, intended to show how the Romney campaign’s attack on Obama’s 14 year old “redistribution” comment was unfair.

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“The president threw in the white flag of surrender. He said he
can’t change Washington from the inside. We’re going to give him that
chance in November, he’s going outside.”

— Mitt Romney, quoted by Politico.

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

Colorado: Obama 49%, Romney 45% (YouGov)

Florida: Romney 48%, Obama 44% (Caddell/McLaughlin)

Florida: Obama 49%, Romney 46% (We Ask America)

Florida: Obama 48%, Romney 46% (YouGov)

Iowa: Obama 48%, Romney 42% (YouGov)

Michigan: Obama 52%, Romney 38% (Detroit News)

Michgan: Obama 52%, Romney 38% (Glengariff)

Nevada: Obama 49%, Romney 46% (CNN/ORC)

Nevada: Obama 51%, Romney 43% (YouGov)

New Hampshire: Obama 47%, Romney 40% (YouGov)

North Carolina: Obama 46%, Romney 46% (YouGov)

Ohio: Obama 47%, Romney 44% (Caddell/McLaughlin)

Pennsylvania: Obama 48%, Romney 42% (We Ask America)

Virginia: Obama 48%, Romney 44% (YouGov)

Wisconsin: Obama 48%, Romney 46% (YouGov)

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) “is at the top of the Club for Growth’s target list for 2014,” Politico reports.

Said the group’s president, Chris Chocola: “If you’re looking to the horizon of 2014. the sun may rise over South Carolina,” adding that Graham “has not fared well on our score card.”

Wall Street Journal: “Mitt Romney’s plan to rebound from a tough stretch in his bid for the White House rests on stepping up campaigning in swing states, running more television ads and curtailing a fundraising push that has had him spending more time with donors in hotel ballrooms than with supporters at campaign rallies.”

“Still navigating a series of setbacks, Mr. Romney will hit the campaign trail harder than he has since the party conventions began at the end of August, with public events in Florida, Nevada, Colorado and Ohio in the next week.”

USA Today reports Romney will do a bus tour in Ohio.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll in 12 battleground states find voters are now significantly more enthusiastic about voting this fall than they were in June: 59% are either “extremely” or “very” enthusiastic, up from 46%.

But Democrats’ level of enthusiasm has increased more: “Thus, whereas equal percentages of Democrats and Republicans were enthusiastic in June, Democrats are now significantly more enthusiastic than Republicans, 73% vs. 64%.”

Huffington Post: “Mitt Romney’s campaign produced a 10-minute documentary film about the candidate that forced even liberal Democrats, when it was shown at the Republican National Convention, to admit that it was a moving portrayal of Romney’s life and values.”

“The problem is not very many people have seen the video, and the Romney campaign appears to have made little effort to change that. Romney revealed to donors in Atlanta on Wednesday that he himself had not seen the entire thing until it was shown before his remarks at a fundraiser.”

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President Obama’s political team is providing “a textbook example of how an incumbent can harness the power of the office to bolster the case for re-election,” the New York Times reports.

“Every president lives at the intersection of policy and politics, never more so than during a campaign season. Locked in a tight race with Mitt Romney, Mr. Obama and his team have been pulling every lever of the federal government within reach, announcing initiatives aimed at critical constituencies, dispatching cabinet secretaries to competitive areas, coordinating campaign events to match popular government actions and forestalling or even reversing other government decisions that could hurt the president’s chances of a second term.”

Matt Latimer: “Napoleon Bonaparte reportedly said that he’d rather have a lucky general than a good one. That’s how Democrats are feeling these days about their president. Somewhere Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush are cursing the fates. What’s a guy got to do these days to lose an election?”
 
“It’s amazing when you consider it. For the last three years millions have been spent on campaign commercials, countless thousands have been devoted to campaign consultants and pollsters, many hundreds of people have been gathered in focus groups across the country to tell candidates what to say, and think, and even how to dress. And yet this election may simply come down to pure dumb luck. Historians one day may be asked to contemplate whether, in fact, Barack Obama is the luckiest person in American political history.”

Not only did Mitt Romney back down from his famous 47% remarks, First Read notes “he also softened his tone on health care, immigration, and gay rights.”

“Last night was the candidate many of us expected to start seeing in June or July, not in September — it was the Romney of 2004. And on health care, we have seen Romney make moderate-sounding remarks on the subject, but then he’s had to walk them back after receiving criticism from conservatives. That’s the thing to watch today: Will we see any conservative blowback about Romney’s comments last night? Or will conservatives cut him slack for the first time this campaign because he’s on the ropes? We know the campaign is exhausted from litigating every little thing with their conservative critics, especially since it believes it’s running a more ideologically conservative campaign than any Republican in a generation.”

Wall Street Journal: “Romney Softens Tone at Univision Forum.”

President Obama and Mitt Romney “will get the 60 Minutes treatment
this Sunday in separate interviews with different correspondents,” USA Today writes.