PRINCETON, NJ -- After winning one of the most competitive nomination battles in U.S. history, Barack Obama faces what looks to be an equally tough general election for the presidency. Gallup Poll Daily tracking from May 29 and May 31-June 3 shows Obama just one point behind John McCain in national registered voter preferences, 45% to 46%.
Obama announced enough new superdelegate supporters on Tuesday night to put him over the 2,118 vote threshold needed to win a majority of delegates to the 2008 Democratic National Convention, nearly assuring him the party's nomination.
Hillary Clinton, who has not yet conceded the nomination to Obama, continues to fare well in Gallup Poll Daily tracking of the general election versus McCain. Clinton leads McCain 48% to 45%. This includes an even more sizeable lead for Clinton over McCain in Tuesday night's interviewing.
At the same time, indicative of the difficulty she ran into in the Democratic delegate contest, Clinton continues to trail Obama in national Democratic preferences for the nomination by a nine percentage point margin. In Gallup Poll Daily tracking from June 1-3, Clinton is favored by 43% of national Democratic voters, compared to Obama's 52%. (To view the complete trend since Jan. 3, 2008, click here.)
June 4 is the last day of Gallup Poll Daily interviewing of Democratic preferences for the nomination, as well as registered voter preferences in a hypothetical Clinton-McCain matchup. Today's Clinton-Obama and Clinton-McCain trial heats therefore mark the end of Gallup Poll Daily reports on these measures.
Survey Methods
For the Gallup Poll Daily tracking survey, Gallup is interviewing no fewer than 1,000 U.S. adults nationwide each day during 2008.
The Democratic nomination results are based on combined data from June 1-3, 2008. For results based on this sample of 1,267 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±3 percentage points.
The general election results are based on combined data from May 29 and May 31-June 3, 2008. For results based on this sample of 4,412 registered voters, the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on land-line telephones (for respondents with a land-line telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell-phone only).
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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