By Jean-Paul Salamanca (staff@latinospost.com) | First Posted: Oct 18, 2012 03:57 PM EDT

While the race for the White House has drawn close attention to the polls in prize swing states Florida and Ohio, recent polls indicate that President Barack Obama and GOP candidate Mitt Romney are in a dogfight for the combined 37 electoral votes in Virginia, North Carolina and Colorado.

According to the latest polls from Chicago-based Real Clear Politics, Obama has a slim 0.8 percent edge over Romney in Virginia-where he leads Romney with 48.4 percent of the vote while the GOP candidate has 47.6 percent, Latin Times reports.

Meanwhile in Colorado, Romney, with 48.0 percent, has a razor-thin 0.7 percent lead on Obama, trailing at 47.3 percent.

And in North Carolina, Romney is shown to be ahead with 50.3 percent at the polls, ahead by 5.6 percent over Obama, who has 44.7 percent of votes on average.

The polls, which sampled likely voters, were averaged by Real Clear Politics by the use of several polls.

In Virginia, the polls were amassed by tabulating five polls-one from survey company The American Research Group, or ARG, another from public opinion poll company Rasmussen Reports, a poll done by NBC, the Wall Street Journal and Marist, a New York Times-CBS News poll and one from poll sate company Public Policy Polling.

In Colorado, the polls included in the total average for Real Clear Politics were a poll from Illinois-based pollster We Ask America, a survey from the Denver Post, another from polling firm Gravis Marketing, another Rasmussen Reports poll and an ARG analysis.

The North Carolina poll was averaged by taking October polls from Gravis Marketing, Public Policy Polling and Rasmussen Reports.

President Obama took all three swing states in the 2008 election from GOP opponent, Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain. However, this time around, if he is duplicate that feat, he'll need hard fought victories in each state for a potential 37 electoral votes-North Carolina with 15, Virginia with 13, Colorado with 9-  to tack on to his race to 270.

According to a tally of polls cited Thursday by The Examiner, if the election were projected today, Obama would win Colorado but lose North Carolina, Florida and Virginia. However, wins in swing states like Ohio, Iowa, Nevada and Wisconsin would help re-elect Obama to a second term with 290 electoral votes, with Romney finishing behind with 248 electoral votes.

This week, responding to speculation on whether the Obama campaign has abandoned Florida, North Carolina,  and Virginia as lost causes in the election, Obama's traveling press secretary Jen Psaki said "absolutely not," Latin Times reports.

"North Carolina has one of our best ground games in the country," Psaki said. "They've registered more voters than I think most other swing states, which is an enormous accomplishment."

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