Zogby Reuters Poll: Obama Leads McCain By 7 Percent Amid Polling Warning Signs

A new Zogby/Reuters poll shows Democrat Senator Barack Obama with some upward movement in his campaign against Republican Senator John McCain for the White House: he has now taken a 7 percent lead and being perceived as better equipped to get the U.S. out of the unfolding crisis involving the economy.

But even on the economic issue, Obama’s numbers are way below what many pundits thought they should be given the daily GOP-unfriendly, bad news economic stories emerging now on several fronts (inflation, unstable banks, rising oil prices, big corporate cutbacks and layoffs) and the generally panned responses to President George Bush’s spin-control statements on the state of the economy.

Democrat Barack Obama has a 7-point lead on Republican John McCain in the U.S. presidential race, and holds a small edge on the crucial question of who would best manage the economy, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.

More than a month after kicking off the general election campaign, Obama leads McCain by 47 percent to 40 percent. That is slightly better than his 5-point cushion in mid-June, shortly after he clinched the Democratic nomination fight against New York Sen. Hillary Clinton.

But the poll provides yet more evidence of a relatively new problem for Obama: this is yet another poll that shows him losing support among independent voters, a crucial swing vote component that is likely to determine the outcome of the election:

But Obama’s 22-point advantage in June among independents, a critical voting bloc that could swing either way in the November election, shrunk to 3 points during a month in which the candidates battled on the economy and Obama was accused of shifting to the centre on several issues.

Obama had a 44 percent to 40 percent edge nationally over McCain on who would be best at managing the economy, virtually unchanged from last month. Among independents, the two were tied on the economy.

“There has been a real tightening up among independents, and that has to be worrisome for Obama,” pollster John Zogby said. “It doesn’t seem like Obama is coming across on the economy.”

The economy was ranked as the top issue by nearly half of all likely voters, 47 percent. The Iraq war, in second place, trailed well behind at 12 percent. Energy prices was third at 8 percent.

The faltering economy had been expected to be a weakness for McCain, an Arizona senator and former Vietnam prisoner of war who has admitted a lack of economic expertise.

A look at a list of various poll results on Pollster.com shows why the Obama campaign should be uneasy: most polls show him with a thin lead over McCain.

The bottom line: the race to the White House remains very much a horse race and McCain, who has been often “dissed” by conservatives, has in fact emerged as the strongest candidate the GOP could have put up this year given his continuing appeal to many independent voters.

Cartoon by Mike Lester, The Rome News-Tribune