Decision 2008

Survey gives edge in Michigan to Obama

Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News Washington Bureau

Democrat Barack Obama enters the summer with a small but significant lead over Republican John McCain for Michigan's 17 presidential electoral votes, according to a Quinnipiac University survey poll released Thursday.

Obama leads 48 percent to 42 percent in the survey, conducted for the Wall Street Journal and washingtonpost.com. The poll of 1,411 likely Michigan voters -- roughly double the usual survey sample for a statewide poll -- was conducted June 17-24, and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

"Obama is on a roll," Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown said. He noted that the Michigan survey shows Obama leading among independents, consolidating Democratic support and keeping McCain's margins down among the white, working-class voters who supported Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries.

"The defection of white, working- and middle-class voters that many had speculated would be the case if Obama was the nominee is not now occurring," Brown said. Though McCain led among whites without a college degree by five points, that deficit is as good or better than recent Democratic nominees have fared with that group. And while Obama struggled in some primaries with older voters, Quinnipiac found him ahead among all ages in Michigan, even those over 55.

Quinnipiac is the third poll this month to find Obama leading in Michigan, where Democrats have won the past four presidential elections but where McCain has seen an opportunity in 2008.

The good news for McCain, Brown said, is that the election is more than four months away, that the race is fairly close -- and perhaps most significantly, that on McCain's signature issue, the Iraq war, voters seem to be closer to the Arizona Republican's point of view. While Michigan voters think, by nearly 2-1, that the war is a mistake, roughly half are willing to keep troops in Iraq until the country is stabilized, with no withdrawal dates.