RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden heads to rural Virginia next week during a three-day tour of neighboring battleground states.

President Barack Obama's re-election campaign says Biden will do a barnstorming tour of several Southside and southwestern Virginia cities on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Biden will spend Monday in North Carolina.

The times and locations have not been set.

Republican nominee-in-waiting Mitt Romney is planning a Virginia bus tour this weekend.

The Democratic campaign returns to Virginia after a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday showed Obama with a slight lead over Romney. Forty-nine percent backed Obama to 45 percent for Romney.

Quinnipiac surveyed 1,412 registered Virginia voters for seven days ending Aug. 6. The results are within the poll's margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.