MANCHESTER — President Barack Obama will make his fifth visit of the year to New Hampshire on Thursday, a campaign official said Friday.

The official said Obama will appear at a campaign event in Manchester, with details stilll to be announced.

Obama will be trying to shore up support in an important battleground state where recent polls have reflected the national trend showing a tightening race.

A new poll released Friday by the American Research Group showed Mitt Romney leading Obama, 50 to 46 percent, in New Hampshire. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percent, meaning the poll shows the race in a virtual dead heat.

Earlier this week, a Rassmussen Reports poll showed the New Hampshire race tied at 48 percent while a University of New Hampshire-conducted poll showed Obama ahead of Romney by 6 percentage points, just outside of the margin of error. That followed a UNH poll five days earlier showing Obama with a 15 percentage point lead. Because of narrowing poll numbers, New Hampshire's four electoral votes are highly prized by both the Romney and Obama campaigns.

Following the second presidential debate on Tuesday at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., Obama will go to two other key battleground states, Iowa and Ohio, on Wednesday before heading to New Hampshire on Thursday.

On the same day Obama appears in Manchester, his 2008 presidential foe, Arizona Sen. John McCain, will campaign in Nashua at a fundraiser for Republican candidate for governor Ovide Lamontagne.

— John DiStaso

jdistaso@unionleader.com