Hours before the final debate and just 16 days to go for the Election Day, Mitt Romney, for the first time, pulled even (at 47 percent) with President Barack Obama in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of likely voters indicating that the presidential race is going to be a close call.
Although both President Obama and Romney are tied among the likely voters, Obama still leads among all registered voters by 5 points, 49-44 percent. Forty-nine percent of the 1,000 registered voters surveyed preferred Obama to Romney by 49 percent to 44 percent.
The poll of 816 interviews has a plus or minus margin of error 3.43 percent among likely voters. There's a possible a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points among the registered voters.
Several surveys over the last couple of weeks showed the growing trend of Romney closing in or eliminating Obama's lead. In a nationwide survey conducted Oct. 17-20 after the first presidential debate, the Republican presidential nominee erased a five-point lead that the incumbent Democratic president held in the same NBC/WSJ survey in mid-September.
The lead was narrowed down to a three-point advantage by late last month. Romney picked the momentum after his spectacular show at the first debate on Oct. 3 in Denver.
Romney has a clear lead among men (53 percent to 43 percent) while Obama leads among women (51 percent to 43 percent). The poll also shows that Obama leads among the likely voters in Nevada while Romney has a solid support in the Southern swing states. However, both are essentially tied among the Midwest voters.
