By Susan Duclos
According to a CNN/ORC poll, Barack Obama holds a statistically insignificant lead over Mitt Romney nationally, 49 percent to 46 percent, within the margin of error for the poll, but in 15 states that CNN considers battleground states, Romney leads Obama by 8 percentage points, 51 percent to 43 percent.
Those states are : Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin.
Subsequent polls should be watched as data such as the weak manufacturing report that was released Monday and the unemployment numbers to be released by the end of the week, are not reflected in the CNN poll but will be reflected into next week's polling data.