Poll Tracker

Voters say by a 53 percent to 42 percent margin that Friday's presidential debate should go on as planned despite John McCain's call to cancel it while the nation deals with its financial crisis, according to a Marist Institute poll conducted yesterday. The margin of error is 5 percent. Democrats favor pushing on 80 percent to 15 percent, Republicans side with McCain 76 percent to 21 percent and independents want the debate to proceed by 53 percent to 40 percent.

However, in polling conducted Sept. 22-23, 48 percent of registered voters said the candidates should talk about economic issues, given the ongoing economic turmoil, as opposed to foreign policy which is the topic of the first debate. A majority of Democrats and independents expressed that view as did 41 percent of Republicans. It was Obama who sought foreign policy as the lead-off topic before financial events came to their recent head, wanting to tackle first questions about his foreign policy credentials and then close the debates out with the last one being on what he believes to be his strong suit, domestic policy.

Twenty-eight percent of voters say the face-offs will help them make up their minds, while 71 percent said they had already decided their choice. For undecided voters, 87 percent are counting on the debates to help them choose and the same is true for 38 percent of independents.

Expectations are higher for Obama: 48 percent expect him to win compared to 37 percent for McCain. The New York Times this week did a pair of pieces looking at the debating strengths and weaknesses of Obama and McCain.