Obama leads poll rival in five crucial states

Senator Barack Obama leads John McCain in five of eight crucial battleground states one week before the US presidential election, with Mr McCain ahead in two states and Florida dead even, according to a series of Reuters/Zogby polls released on Monday.

Mr Obama held steady with a 5-point lead over Mr McCain among likely US voters in a separate Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby national tracking poll, the same advantage he held on Sunday. The national telephone poll has a margin of error of 2.9 percentage points.

Republican McCain is struggling to defend about a dozen states won by President George W. Bush in 2004, including all eight of the states surveyed over the last three days.

Win White House

Breakthroughs by Obama in any of those states could move him close to or above the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the White House on November 4.

Mr Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, held narrow leads over Mr McCain in Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri, Ohio and Nevada, most within the margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.

Mr McCain had a solid 10-point lead in West Virginia and a 6-point edge in Indiana.

The two candidates were tied at 47 per cent in Florida, the largest of the battlegrounds with 27 electoral votes and the state that decided the disputed 2000 election.

Most polls show Mr Obama comfortably ahead in all of the states won by Democrat John Kerry in 2004, but the Reuters/Zogby polls show McCain in serious danger in several states won by Mr Bush.

“If Obama holds the Kerry states, he is in line now to get enough electoral votes to win the White House,” Mr Zogby said, noting McCain faces a difficult fight in a handful of states where Republicans have a long history of success.

“These polls are a measure of what an uphill battle McCain faces to win,” Mr Zogby said. “These are all Republican states and McCain has a very tough challenge, but they are all close.”

The state polls showed Mr Obama leads in Virginia by seven points, 52 per cent to 45 per cent, and in neighbouring North Carolina by four points, 50 per cent to 46 per cent. In Missouri, Mr Obama, whose father is Kenyan, leads by a narrow 48 per cent to 46 per cent.

New residents

In fast-growing Nevada, an influx of new residents, growth in the Hispanic population and economic troubles have given Mr Obama momentum and a 4-point lead, 48 per cent to 44 per cent.

Meanwhile, Mr Obama sharpened his criticism of Mr McCain on Monday, warning a huge crowd of more than 100,000 supporters in Denver, Colorado that a McCain White House would mean four more years of failed Republican policies and broken politics.

Mr Obama, concluding a two-day swing through the Western battlegrounds of Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado, renewed his favourite theme — that Mr McCain represents another term for Republican President George W. Bush.

“We’re not going to let George Bush pass the torch to John McCain,” Mr Obama told audience estimated by Denver police at more than 100,000 — the biggest crowd in a campaign that has already set records for fundraising.

The gathering, which Obama aides said exceeded the 100,000 who saw Obama at a recent rally in St. Louis, jammed a downtown Denver park and filled the steps of the Colorado state capital building.