Obama takes largest lead yet in Gallup poll of likely voters

John Byrne

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has taken the largest lead yet among likely voters against Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in the national Gallup poll released Saturday. Obama expanded his lead to ten percent from nine percent on Friday.

Obama's lead is a dramatic rise from the 49-47 percent margin that Gallup registered just four days ago.

Gallup added, "This is the first time since Gallup began estimating likely voters in early October that there is no difference between Gallup's two likely voter models. Obama's lead of 52% to 42% using Gallup's traditional estimate of likely voting criteria takes into account past voting as well as current intentions. Obama's identical lead using the expanded model takes into account only current voting intentions."

"Both of these likely voter estimates in turn are almost identical to Gallup's 52% to 41% registered voter estimate.

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