USA Today reports that a new USA Today/Gallup Poll of swing states found that an overwhelming majority of voters in those states have seen television ads from the presidential candidates. One in 12 voters in battleground states say the commercials have changed their minds about President Obama or Republican Mitt Romney and Obama is the clear winner in the ad wars.
Among swing-state voters who say the ads have changed their minds about a candidate, rather than just confirmed what they already thought, 76% now support the president, vs. 16% favoring Romney.
USA Today adds, "In the 12 battleground states, the race is all but tied. Obama leads Romney 47%-45% among 1,200 registered voters in the poll June 22-29 - a tick closer than Obama's 48%-44% lead among 2,404 voters in the rest of the USA over the same period."
President Obama's team has been working to define Gov. Romney, focusing on his record as governor of Massachusetts (which Romney himself is trying to pretend never happened), and defining his time at Bain Capital as a negative, which Romney has played up as his primary qualification to be president.
"We gave them new information," says Obama campaign manager Jim Messina. "Romney had been out there claiming success as governor," but Democratic ads have prompted voters to "take a look at his record" on job creation and as head of the private-equity firm Bain Capital. Messina also credits a $25 million buy for a positive ad "about the challenges the president inherited and what we had to do to move this country forward."
And we got a preview on the Sunday talk shows of what may be the next line of attack, from
Gov. O'Malley of MD, Debbie Wasserman-Shultz and Sen. Dick Durbin exerting a coordinated attack on Mitt's finances and foreign bank accounts. (Ann Romney eschews the Obamas' 'overseas' vacations, but not her husband's, and her own overseas financial holdings).
On CBS's "Face The Nation," Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D) said Romney is "the first and only candidate for the president of the United States with a Swiss bank account, with tax shelters, with tax avoidance schemes that involve so many foreign countries." Politico reported that on Sunday morning, DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Robert Gibbs "both demanded that Romney release years of tax returns so the American people can see where his assets lie."
The President's team is doing a methodical job of defining Mitt Romney, who voters seem to be realizing has little in the way of new ideas to offer.