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Romney's lead in US election polls could reverse

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U.S. presidential aspirant Mitt Romney's current gains in Gallup polls could reverse in a neck-in-neck election in which the victor remains unclear, said Gallup Eidtor-in-Chief Frank Newport on Sunday.

In an interview on Fox News, Newport noted that while Gallup polls currently favor the Republican challenger, they could reverse back in favor of U.S. President Barack Obama.

"I would say as of today, certainly Romney at a national level has an edge, that's what our data is showing," he said.

"All the swing state polls and all the individual states are very hard to make sense," he said. "Right now, we've got two weeks to go and a big debate tomorrow night."

He was referring to Monday night's third face-to-face debate between Obama and Romney, which will be held at the Lynn University in Boca Raton, FLorida. The two candidates are to square off with each other solely on foreign policy in the last presidential debate held before the Nov. 6 Election Day.

When asked how solid is Romney's current 6-point lead in Gallup polls, Newport said it could change.

Analysts said the same is likely true of the average of all the major polls, compiled by Real Clear Politics, in which Romney surged ahead earlier this month and is now behind the incumbent by a razor-thin 0.2 points.

The third debate comes as the candidates are tied one-to-one in the debates game. Obama won the Oct. 16 second debate on points by a slim margin last week, although some analysts said his performance only served to galvanize his democratic base and stem the bleeding after the beating he took in the first face-off earlier this month.

Prior to the first debate, Romney had been trailing in the polls after Obama launched a series of attack ads that put the challenger on the defensive.

Some analysts argue Romney's gains came because many Americans got their first real glimpse of the challenger, and failed to see the capitalist ogre that team Obama described in a string of attack ads.

While Romney has managed to shake that image, it remains unknown whether he can perform well enough to convince voters to back him against Obama, whom the public has known for the last four years. Historically, incumbent presidents usually win.

Foreign policy is the main theme in Monday's debate, but the challenge for Romney is not to show his foreign policy acumen, but to use the platform to get voters to warm to the idea of a new president, analysts said.