National polls released Monday before the last debate continued to show a basically tied presidential race, with President Barack Obama holding a tiny lead over Mitt Romney in most of them.

In Gallup's daily tracking poll of likely voters. Romney led Obama 51 to 45 percent. Romney lost a point since Sunday's daily tracking poll, while Obama's numbers remained flat. Gallup has consistently showed Romney polling much better than other surveys.

In contrast, Obama claimed a two-point lead over Romney among likely voters, 48 percent to 46 percent, according to a CBS/Quinnipiac poll released Monday night, Talking Points Memo reports. The poll of 790 voters has a four-point margin of error.

Meanwhile, in an ABC News/Washington tracking poll released Monday afternoon, Obama led 49 percent to Romney's 48 percent; the poll was conducted Thursday through Sunday. The previous poll by the same organizations showed Obama up 3 points among likely voters, 49 percent to 46 percent.

"Mitt Romney carries newfound competitiveness in trust to handle international issues into the final presidential debate, combined with his highest personal popularity of the 2012 campaign," ABC pollster Gary Langer wrote in his analysis. "But continued weakness in his perceived economic priorities is keeping the race a close one."

Obama did better in Monday's edition of the national tracking poll from IBD/TIPP, 47.4 percent to Romney's 43.4 percent, among 885 likely voters polled over the previous six days.

"Obama has maintained his strength with certain key Democratic blocs, among them urban voters (a 35-point edge), single women (33 points), and self-described “liberals” (82 points)," Investors Business Daily wrote in its analysis.

In the only New England state in doubt, New Hampshire, a poll released Monday by the University of New Hampshire shows Obama widening his lead over Romney among likely voters to 51 percent to 42 percent. Obama led Romney by six points in the previous UNH poll that was conducted partially after the first presidential debate. Monday's poll was conducted entirely after last week's town hall debate.

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