Shortly after the combative presidential debate on Tuesday, Mitt Romney's campaign began running a striking new commercial that uses a former Obama supporter to contest the notion that Mr. Romney's positions on abortion and contraception are "extreme."
James Hill for The New York Times
Students at Hofstra watched the second presidential debate.
Before dawn Wednesday, Democrats had taken to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and television to ridicule Mr. Romney's debate-night statement that he had collected "binders full of women" when he was a new governor in Massachusetts seeking "qualified" female appointees for his administration.
And on the campaign trail and on the air, the candidates and their allies argued intensely all day over who would do more to help women. At the same time, the topic of whether the heated encounter Tuesday night had alienated the very female voters they were seeking to connect with became fodder for cable TV discussions.
The level of intensity left little doubt that the election was coming down not only to a state-by-state fight for territory, but also to one for the allegiance of vital demographic groups, chief among them undecided women.
Speaking in Mount Vernon, Iowa, Mr. Obama made his own reference to Mr. Romney's "binders" comment, saying that there were enough talented women in the country that finding them required no special search.
Mr. Romney, at a campaign rally in Chesapeake, Va., hit back. "This president has failed America's women," he said. "They've suffered in terms of getting jobs. They've suffered in terms of falling into poverty."
For Mr. Romney, the imperative, with less than three weeks until Election Day, is cutting into what has been Mr. Obama's sizable lead among women.
Their goal, Romney aides said, is to keep Mr. Obama's lead among women, which in many polls has been in double digits, down to the low single digits.
Key to that effort, they said, is changing the perception among undecided women that Mr. Romney holds very conservative positions on social issues, after a Republican primary campaign in which Mr. Romney was under constant pressure from the right.
Through polling and focus groups, the Romney campaign has found that while undecided women said they were concerned primarily about economic issues, they were troubled by whether Mr. Romney's positions on issues like abortion and contraception were too unyielding.
Mr. Romney, who while running for governor in 2002 said he would govern as a supporter of abortion rights but subsequently came to shift his position, now opposes abortion except in cases of rape and incest. On access to contraception, Mr. Romney has emphasized his opposition to Obama administration policies that he says pressure religious employers to provide health insurance that covers contraception.
He has not sought to limit access to contraception but has voiced support for a provision that would give other employers the right to deny coverage for contraception on moral grounds.
Mr. Romney and his team have tried to address these concerns. They said perceptions of Mr. Romney's positions had been unfairly shaped by Mr. Obama's advertising, including ads focused on abortion rights.
According to data from Kantar Media/CMAG, the Obama campaign and Democratic groups have run commercials relating to abortion about 30,000 times since July 2 — about 10 percent of their ads — including one that falsely claimed Mr. Romney's opposition to abortion extended to cases of rape and incest.
Mr. Romney's latest television ad answering that barrage potentially creates the risk that it will remind voters of how Mr. Romney has altered his position on abortion over the course of his political career.
Romney campaign strategists said they decided to release the ad this week because they believe it will have maximum impact as late-deciding voters tune in.
The ad was produced within the last two weeks, after strategists identified Sara Minto of Ohio, one of their volunteers, as a plausible "ideal everywoman."
Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Mark Landler contributed reporting.
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