Barack Obama is leading John McCain 50 percent to 42 percent among likely voters with 1 percent for Ralph Nader and 7 percent undecided in an Ipsos/McClatchy poll conducted Oct. 16-20. The margin of error is 3.5 percent.

As yesterday's Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll showed, the poll says "Obama's gained ground among voters across the board, even on issues where McCain still has an advantage and on some where the Republican usually would expect to be ahead." Obama leads McCain by 8 points on one of the favorite Republican themes - family values.

Voters favor Obama on handling jobs and the economy by 16 points and health care by 24 points. They still give McCain a 12 point edge on national security issues but that's down from margins of more than 20 points that he had in early polls. In any event, voters put more importance on the economy than national security by a 3-to-1 margin.

Other major polls from this week:

• Wall Street Journal/NBC News: Obama 53, McCain 42.
• Pew Research Center: Obama 52, McCain 38.
• New York Times/CBS News: Obama 54, McCain 43.

Barack Obama is leading John McCain 48 percent to 39 percent with 2 percent for Ralph Nader, 1 percent for Libertarian Bob Barr and 10 percent undecided in an Ipsos/McClatchy poll conducted Oct. 9-13. The margin of error is 3.3 percent. Obama's lead in this poll conducted Oct. 2-6 was 7 points.

Respondents said by 53 percent to 30 percent that McCain was engaging in more negative campaigning than Obama and also said, 57 percent to 39 percent, that such campaigning was not very effective or not effective at all.

The other major national polls this week:

• Pew Research: Obama 50, McCain 40.
• Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg: Obama 50, McCain 41.
• New York Times/CBS News: Obama 53, McCain 39.
• USA Today/Gallup: Obama 51, McCain 44.
• Washington Post/ABC News Obama 53, McCain 43.
• Newsweek: Obama 52, McCain 41.