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About this Poll

The landline and cellphone survey, conducted between Sept. 19 and Oct. 17 by ODU's Social Science Research Center, found that Obama was favored by 50 percent, Romney by 43 percent and three other presidential candidates by a combined 3 percent.

Just over 3 percent of those polled said they were undecided or didn't know. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Poll takers began to see a marked shift toward Romney after the Oct. 3 televised debate in Denver, said Jesse Richman, an assistant professor of political science at ODU who analyzed the poll results.

Of the 465 voters surveyed, about two-thirds were contacted before the debate and supported Obama by a wide margin. But most of the other one-third polled after Oct. 3 favored Romney. The margin of error is larger when splitting apart the poll group, Richman said, but the shift is significant.

"That tells you that the debates matter for people's attitudes," he said Tuesday. "The level of support that Obama had in September began to evaporate as we moved into October."