CLEARWATER, Florida (AFP) — Barack Obama capitalized on financial turmoil and surged to a nine point lead in a new national poll which Wednesday revealed new signs that the crisis was hurting his foe John McCain.
The Democratic Senator, prepping in Florida for his first presidential debate with Republican McCain on Friday, also opened a 53 percent to 39 percent gap over McCain on who voters trust most to handle the economy in the ABC News/Washington Post survey.
The McCain campaign however rejected the poll as an outlier which failed to capture relative levels of party identification in what other recent polls have portrayed as a tight race ahead of the November 4 election.
The poll came as both candidates pick through the political minefield sown by the 700 billion dollar Bush administration bailout package for staggering Wall Street and growing pessimism in the heartland about the economy.
The poll finds Obama leading among likely voters by 52 percent to 43 percent. Just two weeks ago, before the crisis really took hold, he had a slim two point lead with the race a statistical dead-heat.
While the lead is wider than in other polls, it does share findings of several recent surveys that the economy and the Wall Street meltdown are having a direct impact on the election.
Only nine percent of those surveyed agreed that US economy was in good or excellent shape, the first time since 1992 that number has been in the single digits, the Post said.
Just 14 percent said the country is moving in the right direction -- the lowest figure since 1973.
Asked who they trust more to handle the economy, 53 percent chose Obama and 39 percent, McCain.
In a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll also published Wednesday, 48 percent of respondents said Obama could do a better job handling the financial crisis, and 35 percent said McCain could.
McCain's veteran pollster Bill McInturff dismissed the Post poll as a rogue reading that failed to capture relative levels of party identification among voters, which he said matched other polls suggesting a much tighter race.
"It's just easy to say, politely, that this one poll is an unusual outlier that does not represent where this campaign is nor where it's headed in the next day or two before we get to the first debate," he said on a conference call.
A National Public Radio poll meanwhile gave McCain the edge, putting him up two points on Obama in 14 battleground states, where Obama had led by three points in August.
In a Rasmussen daily tracking poll on Wednesday, Obama led McCain by just two points 49 percent to 47 percent. In Tuesday's Gallup Daily poll the Democrat led by 47 percent to 44 percent.
McCain made his latest attempt to recapture the initiative on the economy on Wednesday, meeting with his team of high-powered economic advisors to discuss the 700 billion dollar proposed Wall Street bailout.
He refused to say whether he would back the plan, which is running into increasing opposition in Congress, contradicting comments by the Senate's top Democrat Harry Reid.
McCain was asked by reporters about comments in which Senate Majority leader Reid said he had received "good news" that the Arizona senator was committed to supporting the bailout.
"I did not say that," said McCain, who has warned the oversight provisions in the package are insufficient and spoken out against the notion of rewarding disgraced Wall Street tycoons with taxpayer handouts.
The Hill newspaper, which covers Congress, quoted Reid as saying late Tuesday that McCain would back the package, which is running into trouble on both sides of the political aisle on Capitol Hill.
"I got some good news in the last hour or so -- it appears that Senator McCain is going to come out for this," Reid was quoted as saying.
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