Polls: Obama leads in critical trio of states

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer 34 minutes ago

Recently trailing or tied, Democrat Barack Obama now leads Republican
John McCain in a trio of the most critical, vote-rich states five weeks
before the election, according to presidential poll results released
Wednesday.

The Democrat's support jumped to 50 percent or above in Ohio, Florida
and Pennsylvania in Quinnipiac University surveys taken during the
weekend — after the opening presidential debate and during Monday's
dramatic stock market plunge as the House rejected a $700 billion
financial bailout plan.

Combined, these states offer 68 of the 270 electoral votes needed for
victory on Election Day, Nov. 4.

Pollsters attributed Obama's improved standing to the public's general
approval of his debate performance, antipathy toward GOP vice
presidential nominee Sarah Palin and heightened confidence in the
Illinois senator's ability to handle the economic crisis.

The fresh polling is the latest troublesome turn for McCain, the Arizona
senator who is trying to regain control of the campaign conversation
amid increasingly difficult circumstances for Republicans. It comes on
the eve of a debate between Palin and her Democratic counterpart, Joe
Biden, and as the financial crisis shapes the presidential race in
unpredictable ways.

For now and probably for the next month, the race will be entirely about
who can best handle an economy in peril.

The war in Iraq, national security and foreign policy issues — McCain's
strengths — have largely fallen by the wayside as each campaign tries to
chart a course to the presidency in extraordinarily choppy economic waters.

The new surveys show Obama leading McCain in Florida 51 percent to 43
percent, in Ohio 50 percent to 42 percent and in Pennsylvania 54 percent
to 39 percent.

Since 1960, no president has been elected without winning two of those
three states.

The results are notable because they show Obama in a strong position in
the pair of states that put Bush in the White House in 2000 and kept him
there four years later — Florida and Ohio, with 27 and 20 electoral
votes, respectively.

Obama has been struggling to break into a comfortable lead in both
states; for weeks he had been mostly about even with McCain in Ohio
while lagging for months in Florida, even after being the only candidate
on the air and spending some $8 million on advertising.

Pennsylvania, with 21 electoral votes, is a different story.

Obama is trying to hang onto the state Democrat John Kerry won four
years ago, though McCain has mounted a stiff challenge as he seeks to
benefit from his rival's trouble with working-class voters who question
his liberal voting record and, perhaps, his race.

The telephone polls, which were taken before and after last week's
McCain-Obama debate, have margins of error ranging from plus or minus
2.8 percentage points to plus or minus 3.4 points.

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On the Net:

Quinnipiac Poll: http://www.quinnipiac.edu/polling.xml