Barack Obama has moved out to an 11 point lead in Gallup's daily tracking poll conducted Oct. 5-7. The survey was conducted largely before last night's Town Hall debate which Obama won in the judgment of viewers, according to several polls.

Obama now leads 52 percent to 41 percent with 1 percent choosing "other" and 2 percent expressing no opinion - which is not only his largest lead of the campaign in this poll, but his largest percentage of the vote.

Barack Obama has opened up his first significant lead since June in polling done by the Pew Research Center, running ahead of McCain 49 percent to 43 percent with 8 percent undecided among likely voters and 49 percent to 42 percent with 9 percent undecided among registered voters. The poll was conducted Sept. 27-29 and had a margin of error of 3 percent for the entire sample and 3.5 percent for registered voters.

Pew identified three factors that have helped Obama: his debate performance was judged by voters to be better than McCain's; the economy and not world conflicts or natural disasters are dominating the public's attention and they see Obama as the better choice to deal with the financial turmoil; and opinions about Sarah Palin have become increasingly negative.

Although John McCain still has a double-digit lead among white male voters, Barack Obama has closed the gap by 8 points and among whites who are independents, he has narrowed the deficit to 5 points, according to Gallup's analysis of August's tracking poll data and a comparison of it to polling done Aug. 30-Sept. 1 after the Democratic convention.

For Aug. 1-28, McCain led among non-Hispanic white males by 56 percent to 35 percent, a lead that fell to 53 percent to 40 percent after the convention. McCain had led among white voters who describe themselves as independent by 51 percent to 35 percent, but now, he leads Obama only by 47 percent to 42 percent.

Sarah Palin so far does not appear to have helped McCain much among white women. His lead among them was 4 points both in the Aug. 1-28 period and then in the Aug. 30-Sept. 1 sampling. Among white Democratic women, Obama's lead had been 74 percent to 15 percent, and is now 82 percent to 13 percent. Obama has gone out ahead of McCain among white women who are independents, moving from a statistical tie to to a 46 percent to 39 percent lead.

Barack Obama didn't get a "bounce" out of the Democratic convention, finding himself statistically tied with John McCain at 49 percent to 48 percent in a CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted Aug. 29-31. The margin of error is 3 percent. The survey covered the period including the day after Obama's acceptance speech and McCain's choice of Sarah Palin. Just before the convention, CNN's poll had the two exactly tied.

CNN polling director Keating Holland said: "The convention and particularly Obama's speech seems to be well-received. And the selection of Sarah Palin as the GOP running mate, also seems to be well-received. So why is the race still a virtual tie? Probably because the two events created equal and opposite bounces assuming that either one created a bounce at all."

Sixty-four percent of those who watched the Democratic convention rated Obama's speech as good or excellent.

Perhaps more interesting than another poll showing both men in a tight race were the findings on Palin:

• Voters said by 50 percent to 45 percent that she is not qualified to be President , putting her just above Dan Quayle when it came to running mates in whom the public did not have confidence.
• Four in ten voters are not familiar with her, 38 percent view her favorably and 21 percent unfavorably.
• Fifty-two percent say she was a good or excellent choice against 46 percent who said it was fair or poor.
• Six in 10 voters say her selection will make no difference on the way they vote while one in 5 say they are now more likely to vote for the GOP ticket and the same number say they are more likely to vote against.
• Three-quarters of voters believe that McCain chose a woman because he thought it would help him win in November.