World

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney walks with comedian Dennis Miller, left, and senior adviser Barbara Comstock, before boarding his campaign plane in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012, after Tuesday's presidential debate with President Barack Obama. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Barack Obama turned in a strong, feisty performance in his second debate with Mitt Romney, but the question remains: did the re-energized president deflate the momentum building under the Republican challenger.

Obama went into the second of three debates Tuesday night burdened with a poor showing in the candidates' first face-to-face encounter two weeks earlier. As a result, Obama had seen an increasingly comfortable lead in national polling disappear and his considerable advantage in many of the all-important battleground states diminished.

While the Obama team voiced certainty the president had won in the town hall-style debate at Hofstra University, east of New York City, Romney ceded little ground, repeatedly reminding voters of the economic pain many had endured across the president's first four years. While unemployment has declined along with voter uncertainty that the country is on the right path, polls show that the struggling economy remains the uppermost issue with just three weeks remaining before the Nov. 6 election.

Early voting is under way in many states with more than 1.3 million Americans already having cast ballots.

Obama, seeking to deflect Romney's arguments about Republican plans to fix the economy, blasted his opponent's formula as harmful to the middle class. He also accused Romney of flip-flopping on issues like energy and gun control.

Romney described the deadly Libya attack as part of an unraveling of the administration's foreign policy. He said it took Obama a long time to admit the episode had been a terrorist attack, but Obama said he had said so the day afterward in an appearance at the White House. 

Fresh off their latest encounter, the candidates return to campaigning Wednesday to pitch their tuned-up messages directly to voters in key battleground states.

The President was in Iowa and Romney in Virginia where their rallies overlapped in time and both men pounded home on issues they felt were their strongest arguments in the Tuesday night debate.