Gallup Daily: Obama 50%, McCain 44%

Obama maintains lead

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Wednesday through Friday finds Barack Obama maintaining his lead over John McCain among registered voters, by a 50% to 44% margin.

Obama has held at least a small margin over McCain in each of the last four daily reports, generally coincident with the start of the Wall Street financial meltdown that began to dominate the news on Monday this past week. Separate Gallup consumer confidence tracking has shown that Americans' views of the economy deteriorated as the week progressed, and that Americans also began to express increased personal worry about their own finances. There is thus a reasonable inference that Obama's gains may, in part, be related to the way in which the public viewed his and McCain's response to the financial crisis. Friday's economic news was a bit more positive, with the announcement of a pending major U.S. government bailout for the country's economy, and the second day of significant increases in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and other stock market indices. It remains to be seen if this will affect Obama's lead in the days ahead.