Obama, Clinton Are Even In Poll

McCain has taken control of the GOP race by picking up mainline Republican supporters as well. Nearly half of self-identified Republicans now support him, up nearly fourfold from December. He appears to have benefited from the decisions by former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and former senator Fred D. Thompson (Tenn.) to quit the race. Both Giuliani, who has endorsed McCain, and Thompson appealed to many of the voters McCain now counts in his camp.

Two-thirds of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents saw McCain as the party's strongest general-election candidate, and about three in five described him as the strongest leader. He also now has a double-digit advantage over Romney on the question of who best represents the core values of the party. On this measure, he is up 14 points from three weeks ago.

While moderates and liberals have coalesced around McCain as the GOP standard-bearer (56 percent said he best reflects party values), conservatives are less than fully convinced. Among those who describe themselves as "very conservative," 34 percent said Romney best embodies GOP values, and 25 percent said McCain.

McCain also leads on all five issue areas tested in the poll, with overwhelming advantages on national security issues (69 percent call him tops on Iraq; 67 percent on terrorism). He has double-digit advantages over Romney on the economy and immigration, and leads both Romney and Huckabee on social issues. About four in 10 Romney supporters said McCain is better on Iraq and terrorism.

For all his advantages, however, McCain does not enjoy the kind of enthusiastic support that Clinton and Obama have among their voters. Thirty-eight percent of his backers said they strongly support him. And among those Republicans who are most closely following the GOP race, he and Romney are running essentially even.

On the Democratic side, Clinton's supporters are more enthusiastic than Obama's, with three in five of hers saying they strongly support her candidacy, compared with roughly half of his who said they back him strongly.

In addition to the experience-versus-change dynamic, gender and racial differences continue to define the Democratic contest. Women support Clinton over Obama by a 15-point margin (53 to 38 percent), while men back Obama by a 10-point margin (50 to 40 percent).

Among white Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, Clinton is favored 52 percent to 38 percent, while Obama leads among black voters 62 percent to 30 percent. White men are evenly divided between Clinton and Obama, though white women back Clinton by more than 20 percentage points.

As he did in early-state voting, Obama continues to hold an advantage among independents nationally. He also does better among liberals, particularly among those who said they are "very liberal," than among moderates or conservatives. Clinton still leads among those with family incomes of under $50,000 and those without college degrees. Obama has a better than 2 to 1 advantage among those with post-graduate degrees.

Democrats continue to give Clinton higher marks on key issues. She holds big leads over Obama on health care and the economy and a narrower edge on Iraq. The two run about evenly on immigration.

But it is the economy that has become a defining issue of the campaign on both sides. Twice as many people now called it tops as said so about Iraq, and no other issue reached double digits. About four in 10 Democrats, Republicans and independents called the economy and jobs the election's single most important concern.

The poll was conducted by telephone Jan. 30 to Feb. 1, among a random national sample of 1,249 adults. The sample of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points; the margin of error is five points among Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.

Polling analyst Jennifer Agiesta contributed to this report.