Barack Obama is leading John McCain 52 percent to 41 percent with 2 percent for Ralph Nader and 1 percent for Libertarian Bob Barr in a poll of 15 battleground states conducted Oct. 19-21 for National Public Radio. The margin of error is 3.2 points.
Obama leads by 12 points among independents.
"The race has broken open," said Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg who conducted the survey with Republican Glen Bolger. "Some big things have happened that have closed off the campaign that McCain could have run. He's lost independents, now losing them by 12 points. He was the one Republican this year who could have won Independents, and now he's losing them by double digits."
Twenty percent of those supporting Obama say it is because he will invest in renewable energy and create five million green jobs. The other top reasons voters choose Obama were that he would do something about health care costs, end the war in Iraq and redeploy troops to Afghanistan, end President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy and get the economy working again for the middle class.
Most of the voters who support McCain (28 percent) say it is because he has the experience to be commander-in-chief on day one. That's followed by voters who believe he'd end U.S. reliance on foreign oil, would extend tax cuts and keep taxes low, end earmarks and pork barrel spending and end the culture of corruption and influence of special interests.
The states surveyed were Colorado, Iowa, Indiana, Florida, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
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