Poll: Nominees' support tied to economy

PRINCETON, N.J., Oct. 21 (UPI) -- Changes in support levels for the two major party U.S. presidential nominees are directly tied to negative feelings about the economy, Gallup polls indicate.

Analyzing its daily tracking polls, Gallup found that as the percentage of respondents who said they felt negatively about the economy rose, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., saw a corresponding increase in his voter support. The opposite held true for Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.: When negative opinions of the economy dropped, he got a corresponding gain in support, Gallup officials said Tuesday.

The analysis revealed that when residents became more negative about the economy with the onset of the Wall Street crisis in mid-September, Obama gained against McCain. Then, beginning around Oct. 13, Americans became somewhat less negative about the economy, and McCain gained back some lost ground.

But by the end of that week, as the stock market lost much of what it had gained earlier in the week, economic negativity began to rise again, and McCain's relative support dropped.

The Gallup analysis included interviews with 43,217 registered voters, aged 18 and older, conducted in September and October, and carried a 2-percentage-point margin of error.