MOUNT VERNON: Barack Obama and Mitt Romney seized on rows left smoldering from their angry debate Wednesday, flinging new blows in the hotly contested territory that will decide who wins the White House.
Twenty days from election day, and with the political world reverberating from one of the most contentious presidential debates in history, the US president tried to lock in gains from his comeback performance on Tuesday.
Obama accused Romney of offering a "sketchy deal" by failing to explain how he would pay for big tax and deficit cuts, warning that politicians who wait to get elected before giving specifics land voters with a nasty surprise.
Romney wasted no time in appealing to female voters who could make the difference in key battlegrounds, after a spirited dispute between the candidates in the Long Island, New York debate on women's rights and health care.
A new Gallup daily tracking poll showing Romney up six points among likely voters in his best showing yet, suggested Obama's strong rebound after a listless first debate came just in the nick of time for his supporters.
And a new survey by Marquette University of liberal Wisconsin, showed Obama up by only a single point, reflecting the view of strategists from both campaigns that the election on November 6 could be agonizingly close.
Neither poll included data reflecting the impact of Tuesday's debate.
Obama appeared in a muggy gym at a liberal arts college in Iowa, a state which paired with other battlegrounds like Ohio and Nevada could pave a return route to the White House for four more years.
In a tongue-in-cheek aside, the 51-year-old Obama implicitly admitted his intense showing on Tuesday was a big improvement on a listless performance in the first presidential debate two weeks ago.
"I am still working out to get the hang of his thing, debating, but we are working on it, we will keep on improving. I have got one left," he said, referring to Monday's foreign policy donnybrook in Florida.
Romney, a multi-millionaire former governor of Massachusetts, also professed to be still pumped up after the clash, in which the two men went toe-to-toe and roamed the stage, at times seeming to stop just short of a physical confrontation.
"I love these debates. You know, these things are great. And I think it's interesting the president still doesn't have an agenda for a second term," Romney said, in a stop in toss-up state Virginia.
"Don't you think that it's time for him to finally put together a vision of what he'd do in the next four years if he were elected?"
Romney, 65, also warned that Obama's presidency had been terrible for America's women who were mired in the sluggish economic recovery, after Obama torched him on Tuesday over women's health care and equal pay.
The political class was still digesting the repercussions of the latest bitterly contested head-to-head, a "town hall" style clash with questions from undecided voters.
Romney running mate Paul Ryan stood by his man Wednesday, declaring on NBC News that Romney won because he "offered people a very concrete vision" about how he could get people back to work.
But ad hoc polls from major broadcasters gave the Democrat the edge, and his jubilant supporters took to social media to twist the knife. Analysts agreed that the Romney surge had hit a speed bump, leaving the race closely matched.
"The Republicans will be disappointed that Romney didn't put him away, and the Democrats will be reassured that the president is in full press now," said Linda Fowler, a government professor at Dartmouth College.
Conservative commentator George Will said Obama came out ahead in one of the most spirited US debates ever.
Both men "tip-toed right up to the point of rudeness, but stepped back. It was a very good fight," Will told ABC News.
"I have seen every presidential debate in American history since... Nixon and Kennedy in 1960. This was immeasurably the best."
In one spellbinding exchange, Obama glared at Romney and rebuked him over his criticism of the White House's handling of an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, which killed four Americans.
"The suggestion that anybody on my team... would play politics or mislead when we've lost four of our own, governor, is offensive," Obama said, wagging his finger at Romney across the stage.
Seeking to recover, Romney instead stumbled, accusing the president of taking days to recognize that the attack, which killed US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, was terrorism and not a protest that got out of hand.
Obama snapped back that he had referred to the assault as an "acts of terror" a day after the attack.
Romney's strongest moments came when he delivered indictments of the Obama economy, charging the president with failing to rein in stubbornly high unemployment or cut ballooning deficits.
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