Tonight's town hall debate is shaping up to be a high noon duel as recent polls have shown President Barack Obama to falling behind Republican candidate Mitt Romney.

The town hall debate, moderated by CNN's Candy Crowley, has boiled down to redemption and momentum. Key questions as the debate opened focused on Obama erasing his poor performance during the first debate Oct. 3 and whether or not Romney could capitalize on his momemtum from that positive performance.

The two candidates have been polar opposites in nearly all facets of the campaign. The only thing both candidates seem to agree on is that this second debate will be very important. Unsurprisingly, they are handling the leadup to the event in very different ways.

According to The Guardian’s Ewen MacAskill, Romney is embracing the media spotlight. Romney’s campaign team, he wrote, “is sending in lots of governors, senators, members of Congress and strategists out to talk to the media.” Obama’s campaign team opted to remain silent until after the debate.

According to the latest Gallup Tracking Poll, Romney is leading President Obama, 50 percent to 46 percent, among likely voters. According to the Gallup/USA Today polls, in key battleground states, such as Ohio, Obama is even with Romney, 48-48, among women, a vital Democratic base.

These numbers are under fire from Obama’s campaign, which issued a memo disputing the numbers. According to Joel Bennenson, the Gallup/USA Today polls are an “extreme outlier, defying the trends seen in every other battleground and national poll.”

Other recent polls have Obama slightly ahead.

The swing in momentum has been in Romney’s favor despite many feeling Vice President Joe Bidden won his debate with Paul Ryan last week. The polls do not reflect the recent fallout from the Paul Ryan photo op at a church soup kitchen.

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