AFP
- A majority of Americans believe that Democratic candidate Barack Obama will win the presidential election against Republican hopeful John McCain in November, a Fox News poll showed Thursday.
While 51 percent say Obama, who is vying to become the first African American president, will win the election, only 27 percent are betting on a McCain victory.
Voters registered as Democrats are more confident about their candidate’s chances than their Republican peers: 71 percent of Democrats see Obama winning on November 4 while 51 percent of Republicans believe McCain will win.
One in four Republicans think that Obama, a senator from Illinois, will succeed US President George W. Bush.
A month ago, 47 percent of Americans believed that Obama, 46, would win the election compared to 32 percent for McCain, a 71-year-old Arizona senator.
Even though many Americans are predicting an Obama victory, the race remains tight.
In a head-to-head matchup, Obama leads McCain 41 to 40 percent among registered voters, the poll showed. If Libertarian candidate Bob Barr and independent hopeful Ralph Nader are added, Obama leads McCain by 40 to 37 percent.
If Obama chooses former Democratic nomination rival Hillary Clinton as his running mate and McCain picks former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, a former Republican candidate, the Democratic ticket leads 48 to 39 percent.
The survey was conducted between July 22-23 among 900 voters. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points.
A separate poll by the Pew Research Center found that two-thirds of Hispanic voters support Obama for the White House, while less than one quarter back McCain.
The findings marked a positive turn for Obama’s fortunes with Latinos: he lost the Hispanic vote in the Democratic primaries to Clinton by nearly two-to-one, Pew pointed out.
“The presumptive Democratic nominee’s strong showing in this survey represents a sharp reversal in his fortunes from the primaries,” Pew said.
That led to speculation that “Hispanics were disinclined to vote for a black candidate,” the Washington-based think tank said.
The poll, which showed 23 percent of Latinos support McCain, was conducted nationwide among 2,015 Latinos by the Pew Hispanic Center from June 9 to July 13.
A separate survey by Quinnipiac University Polling Institute showed McCain had whittled away at Obama’s lead in the key battleground states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, and overtaken Obama in voter support in Colorado.
“It’s been a good month for McCain. His movement in these key states, not large except for Minnesota, jibes with the tightening we are seeing in the national polls,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the polling institute, said in a statement.
“The good news for McCain is that he has improved his standing in Colorado and Michigan, two states that are critical to each man’s strategy,” Brown added.
McCain led Obama by 46 percent to 44 percent in Colorado, the survey conducted last week of some 1,400 people in the mountainous state showed. The margin of error was 2.6 percent.
In June, Obama led McCain by 49 percent to 44 percent in Colorado, traditionally a Republican state.
In Michigan, Obama also saw a couple of percentage points shaved off his voter-support tally, which fell from 48 percent in June to 46 percent this month. McCain held steady at 42 percent. The margin of error in that state’s poll was 2.4 percent.
And in Minnesota, McCain surged ahead — from 37 percent in June to 44 percent — while Obama fell back from 54 percent to 46 percent, Quinnipiac said. Minnesota’s margin of error was 2.8 percent.
