GOP leads in West Virgina race to succeed Sen. Robert Byrd

Democrats have a mountain to climb in West Virginia.

The latest Fox News battleground state surveys of five key states shows Republicans in good position to gain two seats and hold two seats left open by GOP retirements

Democrats, meanwhile, are well-positioned to hold only one.

The polls in West Virginia, Connecticut, Nevada, Missouri and Ohio show varying degrees of success for Democrats in dealing with low approval ratings for President Obama and his policies.

In West Virginia, even a popular governor cannot escape the gravity of Obama's bad numbers, while in Connecticut lukewarm ratings for Obama seem to do little harm to the well-known Democratic attorney
general's Senate bid.

The latest surveys were conducted on Oct. 2 by Pulse Opinion Research for Fox News. Each survey included 1,000 likely voters and has a margin of error of 3 points.

The surveys will be conducted weekly until the election.

Deep resistance to Obama's agenda has put a West Virginia Senate seat once thought to be safe territory for Democrats in serious jeopardy.

A new Fox News battleground state poll on the race for the seat held by the late Sen. Robert Byrd for 51 years shows Republican businessman John Raese with a 5-point lead over Democratic Gov. Joe Manchin among likely voters -- 48 percent to 43 percent.

In what may be the year’s clearest case of Obama’s downward pull on his party’s candidates, Manchin gets high marks from voters – 66 percent approved of his job performance and 65 percent had a positive view of him personally -- but they still prefer Raese.