Then, the President was ruled the narrow winner of the second encounter on Oct
16 when he got the better of Mr Romney in a testy exchange over Libya.
His campaign halted the slide but it was not enough to edge ahead in the
polls. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey on Sunday put the two tied at
47 per cent among likely voters.
The debate is the last major chance for the two candidates to be seen by
millions of voters before Election Day. More than 60 million viewers watched
each of their previous two encounters.