Mitt Romney’s strong performance at the debate last week wiped out President Barack Obama’s lead in the latest national poll conducted by the Pew Research Center.

Romney’s lead was propelled in part by the growing support of women and younger and educated adults, while increasing his advantage with white voters.

Overall, Romney was backed by 49 percent of likely voters, and Obama had the support of 45 percent. The 4-point difference was within the poll’s margin of sampling error of 3 percentage points for each candidate. Obama had an 8-point lead among likely voters in the Pew poll conducted last month.

In the latest poll, women were split with 47 percent for each candidate. Men preferred Romney, 51 percent to 43 percent. Last month, Obama had an 18-point advantage among women, and men were almost evenly divided.

Similarly, voters under 50 were closely divided between the candidates: In September, Obama had a 17-point edge with those voters.

While there was no change in Obama’s support from black voters (he was still backed by more than 90 percent), Romney increased his advantage among white voters by 7 points.

The telephone polls were conducted Sept. 12-16 with 2,192 likely voters and Oct. 4-7 with 1,112 likely voters.