Gallup Daily: Obama Maintains Slim Edge Over McCain

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup Poll Daily tracking of national registered voters' presidential election preferences finds Barack Obama with a slight advantage over John McCain, 45% to 43%.

Obama's much anticipated overseas trip enters its sixth day, but so far it has not meaningfully affected the choice for president voters would make if the election were held today. Obama has held a modest advantage over McCain for all but a few days (in which the candidates were precisely tied) since he clinched the Democratic nomination in early June. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)

Today, Obama will give what is considered to be the major speech of his trip in Berlin, Germany. McCain was planning to give a major speech of his own today from an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, but that had to be canceled due to the after-effects of Hurricane Dolly. -- Jeff Jones

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 general-election results are based on combined data from July 21-23, 2008. For results based on this sample of 2,660 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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