Obama leads McCain 52-36 in Pew poll

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 (UPI) -- Democratic U.S. presidential nominee Barack Obama holds a 52 percent to 36 percent lead over his Republican opponent, a poll released Wednesday indicates.

The poll from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press indicates support for GOP nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona is continuing to drop, marking the fourth straight weekly Pew poll showing his support edging downward.

Importantly for Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, one of the poll's findings indicated that among the 15 percent of respondents who said they had already voted, Obama led McCain by a 53 percent to 34 percent margin, the pollsters said.

The Pew poll found McCain's support has dropped in all demographic categories except for self-described evangelical Christians, where the Republican held his only advantage.

While Obama has not moved off his 52 percent support level in recent weeks, more of his backers say they support him strongly -- 74 percent of them now make that assertion, compared with 65 percent in mid-September.

The poll of 1,500 U.S. adults was conducted Oct. 23-26 and had an error margin of 3 percentage points.