More in-tune? Voters Lean Obama

With John McCain and Barack Obama trading barbs about who is the more out-of-touch (real estate-wise), in two new national polls, the law professor turned senator appears to have the edge on the Navy pilot turned senator.

In the CBS News-New York Times poll released last night, 55 percent of voters said Obama is someone they can "relate" to, while 41 percent said so of McCain. Among independents, however, the two run about evenly: 46 percent said they can relate to the senator from Illinois, 44 percent said so about McCain. Obama fares better on the question among Republicans (28 percent) than McCain does among Democrats (14 percent).

Is ... someone you can relate to, or not? Barack Obama John McCain

That poll also showed Obama with an advantage as the more empathetic candidate. Nearly four in 10 said Obama cares "a lot" about their needs and problems, just about a quarter said so of McCain.

But Obama too faces challenges on related questions. In the new NBC News-Wall Street Journal survey, 60 percent said McCain has a "background and set of values that you can identify with," 50 percent said so of Obama. And in the CBS-Times poll, while the two ran evenly on sharing "the values most Americans try to live by," McCain had a slim edge on this question among independents, 65 percent of whom said he shared such values; 59 percent who said so of Obama.