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WORLD> America
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Obama leads or tied in 8 crucial states
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-10-29 21:01 In three states -- North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania -- the number of white Democrats who said the word "violent" described most blacks hit double digits in the polling. In those same states, Obama was having trouble winning over white Democrats -- 20 percent of them in North Carolina said they were voting for McCain; 12 percent in Florida and 8 percent in Pennsylvania. A senior GOP aide in Congress, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid angering his presidential nominee, said McCain's advisers are being asked by some Republican leaders to focus the candidate's travel on states with close Senate races -- essentially abandoning his White House ambitions to help re-elect GOP senators. But it's Obama who may have coattails. Democrats lead the Senate races in Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia, according to AP-GfK polls. In North Carolina, GOP Sen. Elizabeth Dole is essentially tied with state Sen. Kay Hagan. In all four of those Senate races, the Democratic candidate leads among early voters, a sign of a strong ground game driven by the top of the ticket. Obama easily outpaces McCain among early voters, holding about a 2-1 advantage in six of the states. Obama is favored on almost every issue in every state, the polling says: _Voters in all eight states gave him the highest marks on whom they trust to fix the economy and improve health care. _Even on the question of "who would make the right decision about national security," typically a strong suit for McCain, Obama holds a slight lead in Nevada and is running even against his GOP rival in Colorado, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia. _By large margins, voters in each of the eight states consider Obama the likely winner Tuesday. _Voters in each state believe McCain has run a far more negative campaign. The political landscape tilts against McCain. Just 8 percent of voters in New Hampshire think the country is headed in the right direction. Three-quarters of voters in Pennsylvania disapprove of Bush's job performance. Nine in 10 voters in North Carolina are worried about the economy. "People will vote for change, and Barack Obama represents that change," said Gaylord, the GOP consultant in Virginia. Speaking of McCain, he said: "And try as he will -- and he has -- to be the candidate of change, he could not. He could not overcome the weight of George Bush's failed policies." The AP-GfK Battleground State Poll was conducted from Oct. 22-26 in eight states. It involved interviews by landline telephone with likely voters in each state, ranging from 600 in Florida and New Hampshire to 628 in Nevada. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 3.9 percentage points in Colorado and Nevada, and 4 points in the other states.
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