PRINCETON, NJ -- Barack Obama maintains a modest 46% to 42% lead over John McCain among registered voters nationally in Gallup Poll Daily tracking, with no sign yet of a significant "bounce" from Obama's high-visibility world tour.
Gallup also finds 6% of voters saying they won't vote for either candidate, while another 6% are still undecided.
The big news from Gallup Poll Daily tracking is the continuing stability of this race. Many observers (and based on its reaction, the McCain campaign itself) have hypothesized that Obama could have the chance of making a major breakthrough in voter sentiment as a result of the streaming video and photos and news coverage of the Illinois senator with U.S. troops, military commanders, and foreign leaders. As of Tuesday night's interviewing, however, this has not materialized.
Perhaps the signal event of Obama's overseas trip will be a forthcoming speech before tens of thousands in Germany later this week. It remains to be seen whether or not news coverage of this speech will alter the support patterns among American voters. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.) -- Frank Newport
Survey Methods
For the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008.
The general-election results are based on combined data from July 20-22, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,640 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
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