Poll: Obama Clinging to Lead

President Obama is still on course to narrowly win a second term despite recent setbacks, according to the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll. Obama is ahead of Mitt Romney 47% to 44%, according to the poll. The survey also finds the president further ahead in a dozen swing states which, as a whole, favor him 50% to 42%. More voters view Romney unfavorably rather than favorably by a 6-point margin—but they're not brimming with enthusiasm for Obama, either: His approval rating is at 47%, its lowest of the year.

"It's definitely a lesser of two evils," says a 54-year-old homemaker in Colorado who plans to vote for Obama. "I don't think he's overly competent at his job, and he's naive about the state of international affairs. His handling of the economy hasn't been very good, either." Worryingly for the Obama campaign, interest in the election has dropped sharply from 2008 levels among both young voters and Latinos. Some 62% of those under 34 showed high interest levels in the election in mid 2008, but just 46% do now. (More NBC News/Wall Street Journal stories.)