Arizona Sen. John McCain kicks off his general election campaign trailing both potential Democratic nominees in hypothetical matchups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama leads McCain, who captured the delegates needed to claim the Republican nomination Tuesday night, by 12 percentage points among all adults in the poll. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) enjoys a six-point lead over the presumptive GOP nominee. Both Democrats are buoyed by moderates and independents in the head-to-heads and benefit from sustained negative public assessments of President Bush and the war in Iraq.
About two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job and think the war was not worth fighting, and most hold those positions "strongly." A slim majority also doubts the United States is making progress toward restoring civil order in Iraq, even as McCain and others extol recent successes there.
These views are closely related to voters' choices: McCain does poorly against Clinton and Obama among those who disapprove of the president and those opposing the war.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
Obama Leads McCain by 12
in a general election matchup between obama and mccain, obama leads mccain by 12 points; clinton leads mccain by 6 points.
