Obama leads by 9 points over his Republican rival in US pres poll

Washington, Nov 2 (UNI) With barely 48 hours left to go to the polls, Democratic candidate Barack Obama leads by nine-points over his Republican rival John McCain in the presidential election, according to a latest opinion poll.

Obama tops McCain 53 to 44 per cent, according to the Washington Post-ABC News daily tracking poll.

The poll started after the last of the three presidential debates, and Osama's margin has held between seven and 11 points throughout.

Obama leads in every state that Democratic Senator John F Kerry won in the presidential poll four years ago, which gives him a base of 252 electoral votes of the 270 needed to win.

He also has leads of varying sizes in five states President Bush won: Iowa, New Mexico, Virginia, Colorado and Nevada. Were he to win all of those on Tuesday, he would claim the presidency with 291 electoral votes.

More than half of all voters in the Post-ABC poll say the economy is their central voting issue, and Obama has been the main beneficiary of that focus.

He has a double-digit edge on the question of which candidate is better able to handle the economy, and he has had even wider leads as the one who is more in touch with the financial problems people face.

No Democrat has won more than 50.1 per cent of the national vote since Jimmy Carter in 1976, but Obama could eclipse that number on Tuesday if current projections hold.

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