“Our message is very clear, which is we cannot afford four more years like the last four years, and we need a real recovery,” Ed Gillespie, a senior adviser to Mr. Romney, said after briefing reporters on Monday morning. “Whether it’s job creation, health care, energy or debt, the message is we cannot afford four more years like the last four years. We know this resonates with voters.”

Democrats have been trying all along to turn the 2012 race into a “choice” election between the policies and personalities of both candidates, so that the single focus is not the economy. And while it is too soon to know if the Republicans’ multipronged strategy will hurt Mr. Obama, the election is now being fought on the president’s preferred ground.

“They had no choice but to move on to our playing field,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “When they go to the choice argument, they are stuck.”

When Mr. Romney announced his candidacy in the summer of 2011, his top advisers — in particular his senior strategist, Stuart Stevens — repeatedly said they believed that the country’s economic woes would keep voter attention focused squarely on the president. Mr. Romney embraced that approach from the beginning with a YouTube video announcing his candidacy in which he said, “President Obama’s policies have failed.”

Mr. Romney has seized on weak job numbers to argue that Mr. Obama has been unable to repair the economy, and on Friday the federal government will issue its report for September, including an updated unemployment estimate.

But polls suggest that the economic argument has not worked as Mr. Romney had hoped. A CNN/ORC International poll, conducted Sept. 28 to Sept. 30 and released on Monday, showed the candidates tied on the question of who would best handle the economy. Other polls indicate that voters increasingly believe the country is headed in the right direction.