UPI Poll: Romney has 3-point lead

WASHINGTON, Oct. 15 (UPI) -- Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has a 3 percentage point lead over President Obama, the latest United Press International poll indicated Monday.

Forty-nine percent of likely voters said they would vote for Romney and 46 percent said they favored Obama, results of the UPI-CVoter poll indicated.

For the first time since UPI/C-Voter began polling for the 2012 election cycle, Obama's approval and disapproval rating were the same: 48 percent. Until this latest poll, approval ratings by registered voters were higher than his disapproval ratings for Obama's performance as president.

Registered voters also took Obama to task when asked to rank his performance on a scale of zero to 10, with zero being the worst and 10 the best. Voters judged Obama at 4.9 percent, down from the 5-plus points he had last week, results showed.

A majority of registered voters said they were concerned about economy-related issues, with 61 percent naming the economy or unemployment as the most important issue facing the country, the survey indicated.

Results are based on nationwide telephone interviews with 1,478 registered voters, of which 1,244 identified themselves as likely voters, conducted Oct. 7-13. The margin of error is 3.5 percentage points for the total sample and 4.5 percentage points for likely voters.