The latest polls: National: CNN/ORC has Obama up 50-47%; Quinnipiac has Obama leading 49-45%; Latino Decisions has Obama up by a whopping 52 points, 73-21%, with Latinos. It’s the highest mark Obama’s gotten in the poll and is up from 65-26% six weeks ago; In the states: New Hampshire: A WBUR poll Obama leads by a sizable 54-39% (with leaners). The gender margins closely mirror Obama’s 10-point victory in the Granite State from 2008.

Women account for Obama’s leads in the polls. In Quinnipiac, Obama’s up 18 points with women. In CNN/ORC, Obama’s up 9 with them and only down 3 with men. Obama leads in the WBUR/New Hampshire poll with women by 27 points, up from 14 points in the early September poll. But he also leads among men, 46-43%. In 2008, women fueled Obama’s win in New Hampshire also. He split the male vote with McCain, but he won women by 23 points.

Pew: “Mitt Romney’s statement that 47% of the public is dependent on government has registered strongly with voters. Fully two-thirds of voters (67%) correctly identify Romney as the candidate who made the comments. Among those aware that Romney made comments about the ‘47%’, more than half (55%) have a negative reaction while just 23% react positively.”

National Journal’s Shepard on Quinnipiac: “Romney also leads Obama among white voters, 53 percent to 42 percent. But his margin among whites lags behind Sen. John McCain's in 2008, when the Arizona Republican won them, 55 percent to 43 percent.” And: “Romney has lost his advantage on the economy. Now, just as many voters say they think Obama would do a better job on the economy, 48 percent, as say Romney would, 47 percent. Obama also has higher ratings than Romney on health care, national security, and handling an international crisis. Romney does hold the edge on handling the budget deficit, 52 percent to 42 percent.”

Plus, “As in the ABC News/Washington Post poll, voters think Obama is more likely than Romney to win the upcoming debates by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio, 54 percent to 28 percent. But only 11 percent of voters say the candidates are likely to say or do anything that would change their minds.”

Nate Silver looks at the possibility of an electoral tie that is a real possibility – with Obama holding Kerry states and winning just New Mexico and Ohio in addition. That means Romney winning Iowa, Virginia, Florida, Colorado, and Nevada. That would get a 269-269 tie.

AP: “It's not just the collection plate that's getting passed around this fall at hundreds of mainly African-American and Latino churches in presidential battleground states and across the nation. Exhorting congregations to register to vote, church leaders are distributing registration cards in the middle of services, and many are pledging caravans of ‘souls to the polls’ to deliver the vote. The stepped-up effort in many states is a response by activists worried that new election rules, from tougher photo identification requirements to fewer days of early voting, are unfairly targeting minority voters—specifically, African-Americans who tend to vote heavily for Democrats. Some leaders compare their registration and get-out-the-vote efforts to the racial struggle that led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. … To some African-American leaders like the Rev. F.E. Perry, a Cleveland-based bishop in Ohio's Church of God in Christ, it's as if the 1960s barriers to black civil rights have returned all over again.”

More: “To be sure, not all clergy are encouraging their flocks to turn out on Election Day: Some black pastors are telling their congregations to stay home, seeing no good presidential choice between a Mormon candidate and one who supports gay marriage. The pastors say their congregants are asking how a true Christian could back same-sex marriage, as Obama did in May. As for Romney, the first Mormon nominee from a major party, some congregants are questioning the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its former ban on men of African descent in the priesthood. Those pastors, however, are in the minority.”