Recent polls should bring a cheer to the White House

With just 51 days left in the general election, recent polls show Obama edging ahead of Romney after facing a tough week, dealing with the anti-US protests throughout the Muslim world.

While Romney also faced some backlash after criticizing Obama at a time when national unity was called for, it’s Obama who has more responsibility for what caused the series of protests and the U.S. response to the attacks on US consulate in Benghazi. His decisions now can make or break his re-election.

However, recent polls show some good news for the president, as his post-convention bounce endures in the most important battle grounds.

NBC/Wall Street/ Marist polls show Obama leading Mitt Romney with 7 points in Ohio and 5 points in Florida and Virginia. That’s not all; RealClearPolitics polling average has found Obama up by 4.2 percent points in Ohio, 1.3 in Florida and 0.4 in Virginia. Another poll on Saturday by Philadelphia Inquirer saw Obama leading Romney 50-39 in Pennsylvania.

“Following the conventions, Obama’s favorability rating has increased by 3 points, while his unfavorable rating has decreased by 6 points. Opinions of Romney have improved slightly following the conventions, but he still has a net negative personal popularity rating among voters in state, with 46 percent favorable/48 percent unfavorable rating,” reports Politico of the poll carried out in Pennsylvania.

Another poll by Reuters/Ipsos highlights Obama gaining a 7-point lead to Romney following the Democratic convention. Ipsos pollster, Julia Clark notes that the poll results show that Obama is in good shape.

The polls also show that registered voters prefer Obama’s policies on taxes (41-30%), healthcare(44-28%), Social Security(39-27%) and approach to war on terrorism(39 to 25%) over Romney. These polls were conducted two days after the attacks on the U.S. consulate in Libya.

According to one sleeper poll, Obama is seen extending his lead over Jewish voters to 70-25 percent with respect to his handling of the tensions between U.S. and Israel over attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities.

As the election day approaches, Obama’s stance on the ongoing foreign affairs could be a defining moment during his re-election bid as the number of undecided voters continue to shrink to a mere 5 to 6 percent and more and more Americans are getting fully involved in the campaigns of both candidates. Nonetheless, as some Republicans note, an overall evaluation of how well Obama did during his four-year term in the office, is what it will all boil down to.