Romney makes a jump in the polls

>> and mitt romney are heading back to ohio today in a very different situation than the last time they campaigned in the battleground state . the new pew poll know shows governor romney ahead among likely voters. it's the latest dose of reality for the obama camp in a race that is evolving with only weeks left until election day . joining me for our daily fix, chris cizilla, msnbc contributor and managing editor of of postpolitics.com and mark halperin for "time" and msnbc. joining us from chicago . chris cizilla, first of all to you, the new polls certainly have given a great burst of energy to mitt romney 's campaign.

>> no question. i would say and we said this when there was polling that had president obama up eight, nine, ten points nationally, let's see where it sorts out at the end of the week or beginning of next week. if you are mitt romney , this is -- the pew poll yesterday was huge news because a lot of what happens here at the end and we are 28 days away, is momentum based. for folks who haven't made their mind up yet you want to look like you're the guy with the momentum. coming off the debate and the pew poll you now can make the case that mitt romney is the guy who is kind of the energy and enthusiasm candidate. i think some polls will come out in places like ohio , virginia, north carolina , florida, hopefully some independent polls in the next few days that i think will get the measure of how much bounce mitt romney got. if those polls suggest him really closing the margin in those states then i think the romney campaign is really on to something. national polling is great and they're happy to have it, but really the problem they have had in the last six weeks, two months, is electoral vote in the swing states . they need those numbers to move.

>> and we are going to have our nbc news/" wall street journal "/marist polls in florida, ohio , and virginia coming out first thing thursday morning. mark you're in chicago , which tells me you've probably been doing a lot of reporting. what are they saying at the obama headquarters?

>> well, andrea, i came straight here from the headquarters where i sat down with some of the top officials on the campaign and talked through where we are today. and i want to state this carefully, and factually, they said in a response to direct question , they feel just as good about where they are today as they did two weeks ago. they said while there is clearly public polling that shows some change they don't see any fundamental change in the race whatsoever in the battleground states they have a bigger gender gap than nationally, in the battleground state they've won the voter registration war state by state and still feel while they know the president's debate performance wasn't what they wanted it to be, they still feel very much in control. it will be tight, not taking it for granted but if you took them at face value they say no meaningful change based on the results of the debate.

>> you mentioned the gender gap and one of the polls, i guess the pew poll, showed a huge swing in the gender, dead even among women. that would be a big change indeed. do you think that's an outlier?

>> well, that's a bit of a role reversal. you have democrats doing things like picking out things like the pew poll to show the change in voter preference as well as the elimination of the gender gap with women and they say that just can't be true. clearly the totality of the public polls suggest both in the few battleground states we have so far in advantage of the nbc/marist polls and national polls there seems to be an impact on the race. what they're saying is they're never forth physical comicoming about what their data shows, but the national polls are showing a change. it's not that much, not determinative and it's not something that's going to sustain. they believe the arguments they're making the things that gave them a structural and message advantage before they say they still have.

>> now, what about the whole battle over big bird ? chris cizilla, this is the commercial that the obama campaign began airing. it's on cable, not a battleground state buy. it doesn't have a real impact on as many voters in the critical states. but, they've cried foul as we say. ses mame workshop as --

>> i'm barack obama and i approve this message.

>> bernie madoff, ken lay , dennis kozlowski , glutens of greed and the evil genius who towered over them, one man has the guts to say his name.

>> big bird .

>> big, yellow, a menace to our economy, mitt romney knows it's not wall street you have to worry about, it's sesame street .

>> i'm going to stop the subsidy to pbs.

>> mitt romney taking on our enemies no matter where they nest.

>> now it's funny.

>> politics.

>> when talking about sesame street and not taxes, you know, foreign policy or, you know, what to do about the fiscal cliff, what kind of a campaign is that?

>> well, this is -- so the gamut here, you mentioned, this is on cable tv nationally in some broadcast tv nationally and not in any swing state . if the obama campaign spent $100,000 on this ad buy, i would be surprised. they certainly don't have any real money behind it. this is meant to be a talker in the media and to send to their base and say see, mitt romney , he's being ridiculous. the danger when you do things like this, this close to an election is to your point, i got lots of republicans sending me the famous barack obama quote from 2008 about john mccain that he can't talk about big things in this election so he's trying to make it about small things. i don't think barack obama is trying to make this election about big bird . this seems a targeted strategy at a small group of people. at the same time it certainly opens them up to the, you know, look, we have serious problems in this country, barack obama has said that many times, why with 28 days before the election an ad running anywhere that basically is a sa tearcle add that usually would be a web video run six months ago.

>> well, why could be to try to trivallize something that mitt romney did during the debate and contrast to all the good things that mitt romney has been judged to have done in the debate. mark, you wanted to get in but i wanted to ask you about the daily tracking poll because the gallup poll comes out at 1:00, for the first time today tracking likely and registered voters . yesterday, their registered voter had a five-point spread. today it's 49/46 among registered voters with obama in the lead. but it's 49/47 among likely voters. mark, what's your take on gallup and these tracking polls which are, you know, seven-day running track ?

>> quickly on the ad, what the campaign just told me is that they think this has got currency away from msnbc and away from serious discussions of issues but in entertainment television , in comedy television . that's where some of the buy is going to be. they're trying to tap into the social media and the buzz about the big bird thing. the one thing i should have said this originally, the one thing they were willing to concede that came out of the debate helpful to governor romney his base is enthused. looking at the totality of the polling one of the concerns you to have if you're a democrat is the enthusiasm gap has shifted more towards the republicans and concede that governor romney 's debate performance makes him more -- generate more enthusiasm among the base. he has done better in polling and as all the polling shifts towards a screen that goes for likely rather than registered i suspect that will cause a further narrowing of the gap. we'll see if the same is true in the battleground states where the democrats claim they're overperforming what you're seeing at the national level.

>> mark halperin , the news from chicago , thank you very much. straight from headquarters. and chris cizilla, as always, see you