Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer as he campaigns with Republican governors at Basalt Public High School, in Basalt, Colo., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney speaks with Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer as he campaigns with Republican governors at Basalt Public High School, in Basalt, Colo., Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
President Barack Obama greets the crowd after arriving for a campaign stop at Loudoun County High School on Thursday, Aug. 2, 2012 in Leesburg, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Graphic compares the unemployment rate trends for eight battleground states to the national average
WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama is bracing for another potential dose of lackluster economic news while Republican challenger Mitt Romney readies to take advantage of any weakness in the monthly jobs report.
The new unemployment numbers, due Friday morning from the Labor Department, will paint a fresh picture of the U.S. economy three months before Election Day. The closely watched report will also help set the tone for the next phase in the battle for the White House as the candidates race toward their party conventions and a fall campaign blitz.
In an unshakably static campaign, Obama and Romney will each seek to spin the report to their advantage.
The nationwide unemployment rate stands at 8.2 percent. That's down from a peak under Obama of 10.1 percent in 2009, but it's far too high for an economy trying to break out of the doldrums.
Another dour report would provide fresh fodder for the central premise of Romney's campaign: Obama's economic policies have failed and Romney's experience as a successful businessman would help him put the country on a clearer path to growth and job creation.
Obama, short of a disastrous report, will continue making his case to voters that the economy is slowly but surely recovering and would be doing better if congressional Republicans would pass his economic proposals.
Obama was expected to comment on the jobs numbers during a White House event focused on middle-class tax cuts. Romney was campaigning Friday in Nevada, a battleground state with the nation's highest unemployment rates, before moving on to a fundraiser in Idaho.
The candidates sparred from afar on the economy Thursday. Romney, campaigning in Colorado, said his economic program would create 12 million jobs in the next four years. Obama told voters in Florida that his rival favors "trickle-down tax cut fairy dust" that has failed to fix the economy in the past.
Romney's plan for job growth included several broad ideas but few specifics. He said he would help small business owners, cut spending to reduce the deficit and cut taxes.
Obama sought this week to draw a contrast with Romney on taxes, saying the Republican's call for extending cuts for upper-income earners would mean higher tax bills for the middle class. The president's new television ad made the case with a highly personalized message: Romney has paid a lower proportion of his income in taxes than many people of lesser means.
Obama planned to hammer his tax message again on Friday by calling on Congress to extend tax cuts for families making less than $250,000 a year before those cuts expire at the end of the year. The president wants to end the tax cuts, first enacted under President George W. Bush, for families making more than $250,000.
While the overall race for the White House remains deadlocked, several polls show Romney with an advantage over Obama on economic issues. A USA Today/Gallup Poll conducted in late July found 50 percent of Americans said Romney is the candidate who would be better at job creation, with 44 percent siding with Obama.
Economists set modest expectations for Friday's jobs report. They expected the economy to have generated just 100,000 jobs last month, which would likely keep the unemployment rate at 8.2 percent.
The trajectory of late hasn't given the Obama White House anything to celebrate.
The American economy grew at a listless 1.5 percent annual pace from April through June, even slower than the 2 percent rate in the first three months of the year.
The economy added only 80,000 jobs in June, erasing any doubt that the United States is in a summer slump for the third year in a row. From April through June, the economy produced an average of just 75,000 jobs a month, the weakest three months since August through October 2010.
The slide comes after the optimism of early 2012, when the first three months of job growth averaged more than 225,000 a month.
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Associated Press writers Steve Peoples in Aspen, Colo., and Ben Feller in Washington and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius in Washington contributed to this report.
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Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Steve Peoples at http://twitter.com/sppeoples .
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