NV POLL: Obama 47 (+8), McKlan 45 (-1)

'REALLY, REALLY CLOSE': Obama edges McCain in poll

Race in Nevada within margin of error

By MOLLY BALL
REVIEW-JOURNAL

In a presidential race that remains essentially tied in Nevada, Democrat Barack Obama has the slimmest of leads over Republican John McCain, according to a new Review-Journal poll.

Obama had the support of 47 percent of likely Nevada voters in the poll, while McCain had 45 percent. The result was within the margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points in the poll of 625 likely voters statewide.

Just 2 percent of those surveyed chose a candidate other than Obama or McCain, while 6 percent remained undecided. The poll was conducted by telephone Wednesday and Thursday, after Tuesday's second debate between the two candidates, by Washington, D.C.-based polling firm Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc.

"It's still really, really close," Mason-Dixon managing partner Brad Coker said of the race for Nevada's five electoral votes. "Obama has a little bit of a lead, but it's not as wide as his lead in most of the national polls. Nevada's still very much a battleground, very close and very interesting."

With undecided voters choosing sides as the election nears, the plummeting economy is overwhelmingly at the front of their minds, the poll found. And although the two candidates are in what amounts to a statistical tie, Obama has gained major ground since the Review-Journal's last poll of the race, taken in August.

In the August poll, McCain led Obama by a 46 percent to 39 percent margin, with 15 percent undecided.

"Since that time, the undecided number has shrunk by 9 percent and pretty much the entire swing has gone to Obama," noted Mark Peplowski, a political scientist at the College of Southern Nevada. Unless something happens to take the focus off the dismal state of the economy, he said, he would expect the trend to continue to favor Obama.

"All other things being equal, undecideds tend to swing toward the candidate they view as an instrument of change," he said. "If you were to take another survey this weekend, you would probably find an even bigger bump for Obama."

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