Democrat Barack Obama leads Republican John McCain by a slim
margin ahead of November's presidential election, according to an early poll
released Tuesday.
Obama held a 48-per-cent to 42-per-cent lead over McCain in a new Washington
Post/ABC News opinion poll, the organization's first since Obama clinched the
Democratic presidential nomination over Hillary Clinton earlier this month.
Moderate US voters were evenly split between the two candidates - a sign of
McCain's cross-party appeal despite the low approval ratings of Republican
President George W Bush. There was a 3 per cent margin of error in the poll.
McCain has positioned himself as the candidate best able to protect the
country, win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and bring traditional US allies
back on board. He has regularly hammered Obama as naive and lacking foreign
policy experience.
Obama, who plans to withdraw US troops from Iraq and pledged to redirect the
country's focus on Afghanistan and the threat from al- Qaeda, on Monday said he
would travel to Iraq and Afghanistan before the November 4 general election.
McCain has repeatedly called for Obama to visit the two countries and talk with
US commanders on the ground, even offering to accompany the Illinois senator on
the trip - an offer Obama rejected as a campaign ploy.
The poll also suggested Republican voters were much less enthusiastic about
their candidate than Democrats: 54 per cent of Obama's supporters said they
were "very enthusiastic" about his campaign, compared to only 17 per
cent of McCain supporters, dpa reported.