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Friday, August 10, 2012

Romney Advisers Dismiss Recent Dip in Polls

By MICHAEL BARBARO and TRIP GABRIEL

BOSTON - Advisers to Mitt Romney on Friday dismissed a series of new national polls that showed their candidate's standing had weakened against President Obama, but they conceded that they could not explain what they called a “huge shift” in the numbers.

Determined to avoid perceptions that Mr. Romney's support is slipping, a senior adviser told members of the news media that there was no legitimate explanation for the swing in polls released by Fox News, Reuters/Ipsos and CNN over the past week.

The polls are an ill-timed distraction for the Romney campaign, which is beginning a four-day bus tour on Saturday across the swing states of Ohio, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.

“Guys, it's the middle of the summer. It's the doldrums,” said the senior adviser, who asked not to be identified. “It's the middle of the Olympics. There has not been any national news, anything that would push these numbers from minus 3 to minus 9 points.”

“You've got to have something to precipitate that kind of sea change,” the adviser said. “The attitudes toward the economy, attitudes on right direction, wrong track haven't changed a bit. It hasn't changed; it is still the same as it was a month ago in terms of attitudes toward the economy.”

In a national Fox News poll conducted Sunday through Tuesday, Mr. Obama led Mr. Romney by 9 percentage points, 49 to 40. In July, a Fox News poll showed Mr. Obama with 45 percent to Mr. Romney's 41 percent - but that month-to-month change is within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, and it may not signify an erosion of support for Mr. Romney.

But since Mr. Romney solidified his status as the Republican candidate in late May, his numbers have remained fairly steady in Fox News polls, while Mr. Obama has seen an uptick of 6 points.

A nd independent voters in the recent Fox poll favored Mr. Obama by 11 percentage points â€" a jump from a 4-point lead a month ago.

A CNN/ORC poll conducted Tuesday and Wednesday found Mr. Obama with an advantage, 52 percent to 45 percent, a 7-point difference, which is within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 4 points on each candidate.

In a briefing about the bus tour at Mr. Romney's campaign headquarters in Boston, the senior adviser batted away suggestions that the candidate was suffering from self-inflicted wounds.

Mr. Romney recently completed a high-profile trip abroad that featured several days of unwelcome headlines from Britain and Israel.

Nor did the adviser explore the potential role of Mr. Obama, whose campaign has pounded Mr. Romney in a torrent of negative commercials, especially in swing states, during the past few weeks.

“I don't know,” the adviser said when asked to explain the polling. He said that if the shift in polling were meaningful, it would show up in tracking polls conducts by groups like Gallup and Rasmussen. “And we are not seeing it there,” the adviser said.

The Gallup tracking poll for Aug. 3 to 9 had each candidate with 46 percent support among registered voters.