Obama, at fundraiser, cautions against overconfidence

WASHINGTON -- Things have been looking so good for President Obama lately that he’s starting to worry they might be too good.

Speaking at a fundraiser on Friday night, Obama told his supporters not to pop the champagne too early.

“This is going to be a race,” the president told a group of donors at the home of Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) “We’re going to have to work our hearts out over the next 39 days.”

“I don’t want anyone to feel that somehow we’re done six weeks out.”

Obama has enjoyed a string of improved polling numbers in important swing states this week, while his opponent, Mitt Romney, continues to struggle with fallout from his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad last week.

That’s put the pressure on Romney to pull out a stellar performance next week at the first debate in Denver. Still, as Obama reminded his supporters, a lot can happen in a few weeks, and the mood among political insiders isn’t always in sync with reality.

Democrats have a tendency to swing to extremes, Obama told the group. They either think “the sky is falling ... or everything is great and start planning for the library five years from now.”

Obama also noted that his host’s home state was a place where “my vote totals don’t always match my aspirations,” he joked. (In West Virginia’s Democratic primary last May, a prison inmate pulled more than 40% of the vote against Obama.)

The fundraiser was the second of three on the president’s schedule Friday night. The lineup included two large receptions at the Capital Hilton and the smaller dinner at the senator’s home.

kathleen.hennessey@latimes.com

Twitter:@khennessey