The poll published Monday of 500 Democratic- and 500 Republican-leaning voters showed Obama, a first-term U.S. senator from Illinois, was the choice of 50 percent while Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who was born in Chicago, followed with 25 percent. Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina was third with 7 percent support.

Among the Republicans, Giuliani had the support of 23 percent, followed closely by former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee with 21 percent, the newspaper said. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was third with 14 percent support.

Illinois voters join a host of other states this year in the so-called Super Tuesday primary elections on Feb. 5.

Both telephone polls were conducted Dec. 9-13 and the results have an error margin of 4.4 percentage points.