Maybe Mitt Romney's campaign team isn't so bad after all.

After months of criticism, much of it from fellow Republicans, the machine managing Romney's presidential bid has him gaining support in the final weeks of the race.

The latest polls show Romney catching or slightly passing President Barack Obama in both the overall race and in some of the battleground states still considered up-for-grabs and therefore vital to both candidates' chances.

Some of those polls also show a hike in Romney's favorability rating, indicating more respondents were supporting the former Massachusetts governor instead of simply opposing Obama.

The late surge follows a rocky period for Romney following the rugged Republican primary campaign, including an ultimately nondescript GOP convention and some unforced errors, such as his so-called 47% comments that were secretly recorded at a fundraiser.

Then, a strong performance in the first presidential debate -- coupled with a lackluster effort by Obama that night -- served as the catalyst for what the Romney campaign insists is a late surge with just over three weeks until the November 6 election.

Polling since the October 3 debate in Denver shows Romney moving up.

In the latest CNN poll of polls -- an aggregate of all the latest major polls -- Romney was slightly ahead of Obama by 48%-47% and pulled ahead of the president in the crucial state of Florida by 49%-46%. However, Obama maintained his lead in two other key battleground states -- by 50%-47% in Ohio and 48%-47% in Virginia. Most analysts agree that whoever wins two of those three states will almost certainly win the White House.

Rich Galen, a conservative commentator who worked in the past for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, said the rise in Romney's favorability numbers was due partly to support from right-leaning voters who don't like Obama but weren't yet sold on the Republican until the first debate.

"I was really struck by that because that is probably the first robin of spring that demonstrates how people are looking differently at Romney," Galen told CNN in an interview on Monday.