President Barack Obama led in three Midwestern states in polls released Thursday, while the Mitt Romney campaign, apparently confident of carrying North Carolina, is beginning to shift its staff there to Ohio.

Michael Levoff, a Romney campaign spokesman, told.the Raleigh News and Observer: “With the increasingly widening polls in North Carolina, we will continue to allocate resources, including key senior staff, to other states.

“Our victory centers throughout the state will remain open and we expect our supporters and volunteers to remain engaged in our unprecedented get out the vote efforts through the election.”

Nearly all recent polls show Romney leading in North Carolina, where Obama broke through in 2008 to become the first Democratic winner in decades.

Meanwhile, Obama is holding his lead in Wisconsin, according to a new poll from NBC News and Marist College. Obama gets 51 percent to Romney's 45 percent. The survey included one day of interviews after the second presidential debate, Talking Points Memo reported.

Obama leads by eight points among likely voters in Iowa, holding steady at 51 percent to 43 percent, according to a new NBC/WSJ/Marist poll. The poll was conducted Monday through Wednesday, one day after the second debate.

In Michigan, Romney’s birthplace, which the GOP has shown signs giving up on, Obama has recovered slightly after his improved performance in the second debate. He leads 52 percent to Romney's 46 percent in a new poll commissioned by the Detroit Free Press and conducted by EPIC-MRA. That's up from Obama's 48 percent to 45 percent lead over Romney in EPIC's poll from last week, TPM notes.

In Colorado, Obama leads by three points, 50 percent to 47 percent, according to a poll from Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling released Thursday. That's down from a six-point lead before the first presidential debate in Denver.

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