October 30, 2008	Thursday	Shawwal 30, 1429

WASHINGTON, Oct 29: A new poll of battleground states released on Wednesday show Democrat Barack Obama poised to pull off an electoral landslide by winning traditionally Republican states.

The AP-GFK poll, conducted on Oct. 22-26 in eight battleground states — not only show Republican John McCain lagging behind Mr Obama six days before the election but also in trouble in his home state.

Mr Obama is up by 18 percentage points among

likely voters in New Hampshire, by 12 in Pennsylvania, by 12 in Nevada, by 9 in Colorado, and by 7 in both Ohio and Virginia. Mr Obama is tied with McCain in North Carolina and Florida.

Those surveys have margins of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points in Colorado and Nevada, and 4 points in the other states.

A battleground or swing in the US presidential politics is a state in which no candidate has overwhelming support and each has a reasonable chance of winning there.

Such states are targets of both Republican and the Democratic parties as winning these states is the best opportunity for a party to win the election.

In another poll by the Quinnipiac University, Obama led 47 per cent to 45 per cent among likely voters in Florida, 51 per cent to 42 per cent in Ohio, and 53 per cent to 41 per cent in Pennsylvania.

The surveys were conducted Oct 22 — 26.