Gallup Daily: 9-Point Obama Lead Ties Campaign High Voters prefer Obama to McCain by 51% to 42%

PRINCETON, NJ -- The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking poll shows registered voters preferring Barack Obama to John McCain for president by 51% to 42%.

The nine percentage point lead in Oct. 4-6 tracking matches Obama's highest to date for the campaign, and the highest for either candidate. Obama led McCain by 49% to 40% near the tail end of his international trip in late July. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)

Obama has now held a statistically significant lead since Sept. 24-26 polling and has not trailed McCain since Sept. 13-15, roughly coinciding with the intensification of the financial crisis.

McCain has an opportunity to try to reverse Obama's momentum at tonight's town hall style debate in Nashville. -- Jeff Jones

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 Oct. 4-6, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,747 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 landline 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.