McCain Leads Independents, Whites in New CBS Poll

Well, if the new CBS poll on the presidential horse race is any indication, Barack Obama is nowhere near clinching the deal:

In a sign that the race for president has returned to about where it was before the first presidential debate, the Obama-Biden ticket leads the McCain-Palin ticket 47 percent to 43 percent among registered voters in a new CBS News poll.

The Obama-Biden ticket led by a wider margin, nine percentage points, in a CBS News poll released last Wednesday, before Joe Biden and Sarah Palin faced off in the vice presidential debate. Obama-Biden led by five percentage points on Sept. 25.

In the new poll, the Democratic ticket leads by 3 percentage points, 48 percent to 45 percent, among likely voters.

There's lots of favorable data for Obama, but check out these numbers:

McCain/Palin hold statistically significant leads among independent and white voters, and as data from the new Wall Street Journal poll indicate, many voters are still on the fence: "A Month Away, Some Voters Can't Decide."

Captain Ed shares this juicy quote from the Wall Street Journal's summary:

The poll suggests that the first African-American to win a major party nomination could be vulnerable to race-based attacks tying him to unpopular black figures such as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor and Al Sharpton, an outspoken and controversial figure. Thirty-five percent of all voters — and 40% of white voters — said those connections bother them. This is absent any candidate or party pressing hard on those themes, something Republicans have hinted they may start to raise more aggressively in the campaign’s closing days.

These data indicate that it's not a waste of time and resources to hammer Obama on his radical associations, and they validate McCain/Palin's shift to a more combative style on the stump today.