Poll: Obama Opens 14-Point Lead On McCain
CBS News/New York Times Survey Shows Major Swing Among Independents, Suggests McCain's Strategy May Be Hurting Him
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Play CBS Video Video Obama Takes Big Lead In Poll With only three weeks until the election, Barack Obama has a 14-point lead over John McCain, according to a new poll. Obama also leads in the personality department. Dean Reynolds reports.
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Video Obama, McCain Economic Plans As the race for the White House draws to a close, candidates Barack Obama and John McCain have each unveiled proposed economic policies in the hopes of swaying voters. Karen Brown reports.
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(CBS/AP)
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News Tools Poll Database Search for results from the latest CBS News national polls on the president, the campaign and more.
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Podcast Poll Positions Listen to CBS News director of surveys Kathy Frankovic dissect the data to see what's driving public opinion.
Obama holds a more than 20-point edge when it comes to understanding voters' needs and problems, with 64 percent saying Obama does and 43 percent saying McCain does.
The Republican nominee does hold a clear advantage on being seen as prepared to be president, as he has throughout the campaign. That measure does not appear to be boosting his support, however, perhaps because while 64 percent say McCain is prepared for the job, more than half say Obama is as well.
Just 7 percent of registered voters say their opinion of McCain has improved recently, while 21 percent say it has gotten worse. The numbers are nearly reversed for Obama: Seventeen percent say their opinion of Obama has improved in recent weeks, while 7 percent say it has declined.
Obama now enjoys leads over McCain with both men (53 percent to 41 percent) and women (52 percent to 37 percent). Eighty-two percent of voters who backed Hillary Clinton in the primaries now say they will back Obama - up from 67 percent last week and the highest number to date.
McCain still leads among Republicans, conservatives and white evangelicals, but the race is now roughly even among whites, a group McCain led 54 percent to 39 percent last week.
With voter registration up in many key states this year, 63 percent of those casting a ballot for first time in 2008 are backing Obama.
The Debates And The Candidates' Past Associations
Seven in 10 registered voters said they watched last week’s presidential debate, and, looking back, 57 percent of debate watchers said Obama won the contest. Just 18 percent saw the debate as a McCain victory.
Expectations are high for Obama in Wednesday's third and final debate, which 65 percent of registered voters say they are very likely to watch. Nearly half of all registered voters expect Obama will win the debate, while just 19 percent expect McCain to win.
Recently, the McCain campaign has gone after Obama about his relationship with former Weather Underground member Bill Ayers, and McCain has signaled that he will mention Ayers in the debate.
One in three voters say they have heard "a lot" about Ayers, and 31 percent say they have heard something about him, though far fewer - 9 percent - say the association bothers them.
Four percent of voters say that it bothers them that Obama is a Muslim, which he is not. Fifty-six percent say nothing about Obama’s past bothers them.
As for the Republican candidate, seven in ten voters say nothing about McCain’s past bothers them. Four percent mention the Keating Five scandal that McCain was involved in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
A majority of registered voters believe the tone of the 2008 campaign has been about the same as in past years. Thirty percent say it has been more negative, while 15 percent say it has been more positive.
Democrats, Republicans, And The 2008 House Vote
Americans have a much higher opinion of the Democratic Party than the Republican Party. A majority - 52 percent - have a favorable opinion of the Democrats, while far less - 37 percent - have a favorable opinion of Republicans.
The Democratic Party is seen as more likely than the Republican Party to make the right decision on health care (55 percent to 18 percent), the economy (47 percent to 29 percent), and the war in Iraq (44 percent to 37 percent).
And when it comes to the House Of Representatives, 48 percent of likely voters say they will be choosing the Democratic candidate in November, compared to 34 percent who plan to vote for the Republican candidate.
This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1070 adults nationwide, including 972 registered voters, interviewed by telephone October 10-13, 2008. Phone numbers were dialed from RDD samples of both standard land-lines and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample and the sample of registered voters could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Michelle Obama tells how her role as the First Lady has changed her perspective.






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See all 2066 CommentsNo wonder McCain is pandering to the Joe six pack. Ignorance really is bliss.
Posted by abro915 at 12:17 PM : Oct 16, 2008
That stuff - in fact, anything about the incomes and taxes paid by the top economic quintile - would be a lot easier to believe if it were not a documented fact that 66% of our corporations have gone 5 straight years without paying any taxes at all - and those wealthy elite who own and run those corporations have access to precisely the same set of tax lawyers and accountants.
Hiding income in the U.S. of A. is a mega-billion dollar industry.
Any quotatations about who is carrying the tax load are suspect, at best.
"The top-earning 25 percent of taxpayers -- those with an Adjusted Gross Income (AGI) over $62,068 -- earned 67.5 percent of nation''s income, but they paid more than 4 out of every 5 dollars collected by the federal income tax (86 percent).
The top 1 percent of taxpayers (AGI over $364,657) earned approximately 21.2 percent of the nation''s income (as defined by AGI), yet paid 39.4 percent of all federal income taxes.
That means the top 1 percent paid about the same amount of federal individual income taxes as the bottom 95 percent."
IF you make over $364,657, your paying for someone else''s benefits. If you make less, someone else is helping you. If you made less than less than $250K and got a $1200 refund check, you really lost $3600 in federal revenue benefits. For every refund dollar, 95% of the people got to split 33 cents, while 5% got to split 66 cents. A fifth grader would tell you that''s a lousy deal.
No wonder McCain is pandering to the Joe six pack. Ignorance really is bliss.
Will the Republicans gain the wisdom to understand that favoring the few at the expense of the many is counterproductive in the long run?
Will the Republicans learn that a reputation for honesty, once lost, is a terribly difficult thing to regain?
Will the Republicans learn that condoning lies, slurs, and smears in order to gain political advantage is the surest way to paint themselves as corrupt and untrustworthy?
I doubt it...look at what the RNC trolls continue to post here, day after day after day.
I am afraid that the Republicans as a Party have chosen to commit political suicide rather than let ethics, morality, and patriotism come between themselves and wealth accumulation.
She must really suck at the football office pool if she thinks hubby is the underdog.
Barrack could go on vacation from now to the election & he would still win.
The reason I started paying attention to Obama and decided that I did not want to vote or him was because of his wife. The first time that I heard her speak and spew her venom, I made my mind up then that whether Barack would be a great president or not it was his wife that would not be a great president''''s wife. She needs to keep it to herself. She is not on the ticket and is a bad representation for her husband. We don''''t need more pot stirers in the white house...we need someone that has the leadership ability to lead this nation and the experience, neither of which Obama has. Looking good and talking good is not all we need at this time. Obama, the underdog, I THINK NOT!!!
OBAMA. How good he handles Mccain attack and Palin.
God forbid if mccain wins his just one breath away
I will not trust this country to Palin. Go check-out
Salon.com then who is unpatriotic.Palin/Mccain all they will do is firing people left and right.Do you like THAT?.......
and naturalized both my kids goes to public school
and intelligent. Guess some state dont have good
teachers.In our state somewhere in Florida have high
standard of public school.Now thats why i want and
also SUPPORT CHANGE for BARACK OBAMA,because listening to the debate His got good ideas.
idea and good things he is planning for America.We dont need another 4 more years.Obama is a cool,calm
and very decent professional person. As a president
and candidate,its not right to inject anger,negative
ideas to people who dont understand what is BIG problem here IS ECONOMY,this need to be fix,not ayers
acorn . I have a very good job and hard and secure but
i feel sorry for people who can''t HOLD there job NOW
and if Mccain wins,you will get a BIG surprise.It is
very EASY and simple his healthcare and taxes and I DONT LIKE IT.....
Because ladies and gentlemen, this is the headlines for this A.M. Our market started this yesterday and it will plummet more today. With our market down and Sen. Obama wanting to RAISE TAXES, where in ''Sam Hill" do you think we will go with him as President?
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