PRINCETON, NJ -- Barack Obama maintains a 49% to 43% lead over Hillary Clinton in the latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update on nationwide Democratic voters' presidential nomination preferences.
The Feb. 27-29 three-day average suggests there has been little change in Democrats' preferences over the last six days. Obama and Clinton clashed in a nationally televised debate in Ohio on Tuesday, Feb. 26. The lack of movement in either direction in a comparison of Gallup election tracking interviews conducted before and after the debate suggests it had little impact on Democrats' candidate preferences at the national level.
There is intensive media focus on the two Democratic candidates' non-stop campaigning in the days before Tuesday's key primaries in Texas and Ohio. The reaction of Democrats nationally to the results of those votes will be a critical measure of the continuing viability of the two candidates when the March 4 voting dust settles.
John McCain continues with 62% of the national Republican vote, while Mike Huckabee has 24%. Long-shot candidates Ron Paul and Alan Keyes have 3% and 2% of the Republican vote, respectively. -- Frank Newport
Methodology: Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008. The results reported here are based on combined data from Feb. 27-29, 2008, including interviews with 996 Republican and Republican-leaning voters, and 1,238 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters. For results based on these samples, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
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