Barack Obama leads John McCain 50 percent to 42 percent among registered voters in the Gallup daily presidential tracking poll.
Barack Obama maintains a statistically significant lead over John McCain among likely voters interviewed Tuesday through Thursday as part of the Gallup Poll Daily tracking program, with a 51% to 44% margin using an “expanded” model that takes into account possibly greater turnout by new or infrequent voters, and a 50% to 45% margin using the “traditional” model Gallup has employed in past elections.
These results are based on Oct. 21-23 polling. The precise numbers vary slightly from day to day, as would be expected given normal sampling considerations and the high-visibility campaign currents that are swirling around voters in the closing days of the campaign. Obama’s share of the vote has been within a very narrow range of 49% to 51% among the traditional likely voter group over the last two weeks, and within a 50% to 53% range among the expanded likely voter group. There has been only slightly more fluidity in McCain’s share, ranging from 44% to 47% among traditional likely voters, and 42% to 46% among the expanded group. These slight shifts in estimates of each candidate’s share are minimal. Nothing so far represents a major change in the structure of the race, and the big picture conclusion is that Obama is maintaining his lead over McCain with less than two weeks to go before Election Day.