THE NUMBERS

Barack Obama, 48 percent

John McCain, 40 percent



Obama's lead in the Pew Research Center poll is slightly larger than his 3 percentage point edge in May. While interest in the race is generally high, it has risen more among younger than older voters since the 2004 campaign. Four in 10 say Obama's national inexperience will hurt his candidacy, about twice the number who say he'll be hurt by being black. Half say McCain, 71, will be hurt by his age. Eight in 10 who supported McCain's Republican rivals for the nomination now support him, compared to seven in 10 Clinton backers now behind Obama. A third of registered voters say they are undecided or may change their minds — far more than said so at this stage in 2004. Independents are evenly split between the two. Obama is doing better with voters under age 50 than Democrat John Kerry was at this point in 2004. But he trails McCain among voters 65 and up — a group Kerry was leading then. Twelve percent say Obama is a Muslim when in fact he is Christian, about the same proportion who said so in March.