Obama slightly ahead of Romney in poll of polls

Washington - President Barack Obama has a slight 3-point advantage over likely Republican nominee Mitt Romney in a new poll of polls averaging three recent national surveys of the presidential race.

The CNN poll of polls showing Obama at 48 percent and Romney at 45 percent includes the most recent CNN/ORC International Poll, the Gallup Daily Tracking Poll and the Newsweek/Daily Beast Poll conducted between June 27 and July 3.

Obama's advantage over Romney is within the sampling error of each survey. As an average of other polls, the CNN Poll of Polls does not have a sampling error, the news channel said.

In the CNN/ORC International Poll, Obama is ahead of Romney, 49 percent to 46 percent. The sampling error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.

The Gallup poll includes results of the past seven days and has Obama over Romney, 48 percent to 44 percent, with a sampling error of plus or minus two percentage points.

Obama has 47 percent and Romney 44 percent in the Newsweek/Daily Beast poll. It has a sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.

The CNN poll also showed Romney ahead of Obama 51 percent to 43 percent in the 15 states listed as battlegrounds on the CNN electoral map. These include those that are leaning but not solid for Obama or Romney and those which appear to be true tossups.

However, the data does not indicate which states Romney is currently winning or how big his advantage may actually be.

Neither candidate needs to win all 15 of those states in order to win the general election, so the aggregate results from all 15 states do not forecast an Obama loss or a Romney victory, CNN said.