After weeks of running neck-to-neck with John McCain, the current economic crisis has shaken up the presidential race and put Barack Obama ahead 52 percent to 43 percent with 1 percent liking neither candidate and 3 percent undecided in a Washington Post/ABC News poll conducted Sept. 19-22. The margin of error is 3 percent. When Libertarian Bob Barr at 1 percent and Ralph Nader at 2 percent are factored in, Obama's lead is 51 percent to 43 percent. McCain had led 49 percent to 47 percent in this poll right after the Republican convention.
The economy is far and away the top issue of the campaign, cited by 50 percent of voters with Iraq a distant second at 9 percent. Voters trust Obama to handle the economy by a 53 percent to 39 percent margin over McCain, and to fix the problems with major financial institutions by a 51 percent to 38 percent margin.
Obama has also leveled the playing field in some of the areas of McCain's strength in previous polls. Obama and McCain are within the margin of error of each other on international affairs, the campaign against terrorism and dealing with an unexpected major crisis. McCain had led by double-digits in those categories in the last poll.
The two are statistically tied on who is regarded as the stronger leader, but Obama now has significant leads on the questions of who would do more to bring change to Washington, who better understands the economic problems facing Americans, and who is more honest and trustworthy.
McCain still out-polls Obama on who would be a better commander-in-chief and who knows enough about foreign affairs to serve effectively as President. On the first question, voters are about evenly divided on Obama and on the second they say he knows enough about foreign affairs by 56 percent to 39 percent. But on those two questions, McCain scores 72 percent to 26 percent and 72 percent to 25 percent respectively.
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