WASHINGTON – As the economy colors and polarizes voters’ attitudes, the Election Day outcome for President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney may be decided on the margins by narrower issues that energize small but crucial slivers of the population.

For three months, the economy by most measures has faltered. Yet the White House contest has remained locked in place, with the incumbent holding on to a slight national lead or in a virtual tie with his rival. Analysts from both parties have no doubt that absent a defining, unpredictable moment, the race will remain neck and neck until November.

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President Barack Obama, above, as the incumbent, enjoys the advantage of being able to make executive rules to satisfy key constituencies. Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, below, tries to stay focused on the economy. The Associated Press

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That, several strategists say, means secondary issues such as health care, immigration, education, even little mentioned social issues such as abortion, guns or gay rights could make a difference when targeted to the right audiences. Under those conditions, the advantage, these strategists say, rests with Obama.

“Part of the power of the presidency, part of the power of incumbency, is having the ability with an executive order to make rules, make effective law that is deeply satisfying to a large group of supporters,” said Steve Schmidt, Republican John McCain’s presidential campaign manager in 2008 and top aide in President George W. Bush’s re-election operation. “Being able to deliver if you’re an incumbent president for really important parts of the Democratic party coalition, that’s an enormously important thing.”

Obama already has moved to shore up his support with certain voting blocs, with directives on birth control and immigration. He’s given his backing to gay marriage and brawled with congressional Republicans on behalf of lower student loan rates. Each issue won praise from disparate groups of voters, many of whom had voiced frustration with the president or whose enthusiasm for Obama had been waning.

“In every single state there will be micro-targeted advertisement, direct mail, or online campaign to get voters out there to kind of hit them on those personal issues that are important to them,” said Rodell Mollineau, president of a pro-Obama political organization, American Bridge. “Whether you’re pro-choice or anti-choice, pro-immigration or anti-immigration, you will be touched one way or the other.”

With Romney and Obama, “neither of them seems to be delivering a knockout blow on the economy, and that’s what does raise these issues and their salience,” said Daniel Smith, a political scientist at the University of Florida who researched the role ballot initiatives played in the 2004 election.

For three months, the economy has created jobs at a snail’s pace and the unemployment rate has inched up from 8.1 percent to 8.2 percent. Economic growth has slowed, consumer confidence is down, and a strong majority of the public views the country heading on the wrong track.

For all that, an Associated Press/GfK poll last month had Romney and Obama in a statistical tie and a Washington Post-ABC poll this week had them even at 47 percent each.

More remarkable, a majority in both polls — 56 percent in the AP poll and 58 percent in the Post-ABC survey — said they believed Obama would win re-election.

Ever disciplined, Romney has kept his campaign message exclusively on economic themes, casting the election as a referendum on Obama’s economic stewardship.

Even when he has strayed into side issues such as health care and the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold Obama’s signature law, Romney has kept his argument focused on the economics of the law.

At Obama campaign headquarters in Chicago, the election also is being framed as one of choices between Romney and Obama on economic issues.

“The fact that Romney hasn’t gotten traction is not a reflection that there is stasis on economic issues,” said Obama senior political adviser David Axelrod. “It’s a reflection of the fact he hasn’t offered a plausible alternative. I think that’s why he’s running into problems.”

Still, Axelrod said: “There’s no doubt that people will consider other things, and if it’s a close call for them I think some of these other things matter.”

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