President Obama clings to a small lead nationally in a new poll from NBC News and the Wall Street Journal, leading Republican Mitt Romney 47 percent to 44 percent. The president’s advantage widens in the states typically considered up for grabs — Obama leads by 8 points (50 percent to 42 percent) in a combined sample of voters in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.

“Also in these swing states, Romney’s favorability numbers have dropped, possibly reflecting the toll the negative Obama TV advertisements are having on the former Massachusetts governor in these battlegrounds,” MSNBC’s FirstRead blog wrote. Those attacks include a sustained critique of Romney’s time at Bain Capital, the private equity firm that he co-founded.

Obama’s rating on the economy remains largely unchanged from previous NBC/WSJ polls: 42 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, while 53 percent disapprove — a trend that has held throughout 2012. The numbers also show that Obama’s rebuttal against Romney’s business experience seems to be working.