Poll: More U.S. swing voters this year

PRINCETON, N.J., July 1 (UPI) -- There are more swing voters in the U.S. electorate this year than in 2004 and they're more receptive to pitches from candidates, a Gallup Poll indicates.

The Gallup Organization, based in Princeton, N.J., released findings Tuesday indicating that 23 percent of the survey respondents could be considered "swing voters," that is, either totally uncommitted or those who say their current support of either likely Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., or his GOP counterpart, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., could change in the coming months,

Gallup said that at no point in the 2004 presidential election between U.S. President George Bush and U.S. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., was the number of swing voters so high. The high mark that year was 18 percent in May, which had shrunk to 9 percent just before the election.

The poll also found that 50 percent the potential swing voters had high opinions of both Obama and McCain, signaling they may be open to persuasion from candidates they already like.

The survey was conducted June 15-19 among 1,310 likely voters and had an error margin of 3 percentage points.