Could Obama win the white vote?

Back in May, political observers wondered if Senator Barack Obama could win over reluctant white voters in a general election. 

Pundits openly questioned if Obama could carry battleground states like Pennsylvania and Ohio that Hillary Clinton won easily. And they wondered if the Illinois senator could remain competitive in places like Florida, especially after that state's Democratic primary voters were headed toward partial disenfranchisement of their delegates at the Democratic National Convention.

As he was about to become the first African American nominee of a major political party, Senator Obama carried a burden to prove that white voters would not turn away from him in droves come November.

That was so yesterday.

Today in October, with just 11 days until the election, many of those fears seem to have disappeared. Obama is leading in Ohio and Pennsylvania, two states that Clinton won in the primary campaign. And he's ahead in Florida and Michigan, two states that Democrats worried about because their delegates were not fully counted at the party's convention.

In fact, Obama now leads in every state that Senator John Kerry won in 2004, giving him the same 252 electoral votes that Kerry had as his base. But Obama has also expanded the base and turned red states like Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa and Virginia to blue. Even in West Virginia, a state with a working-class white population that many felt would not respond to Obama, the Illinois senator has made a competitive bid.

Obama is helped by a huge 3-1 money advantage over his Republican rival, a sour economy, a collapse in the financial markets, a ballooning home mortgage crisis, historic low approval ratings of the incumbent GOP president and John McCain's own decision to choose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

The wind is so strong at his back that Obama appears to be doing better among white voters than white Democratic candidates did when they ran for president recently.

A new New York Times poll found Obama leading McCain among several groups that voted for President Bush four years ago, including married women; suburbanites and white Catholics. The poll also found Obama is competitive among white men, a group which the Times said "has not voted for a Democrat over a Republican since 1972, when pollsters began surveying people after they voted."

That suggests Obama is not only outperforming Senator John Kerry and Vice President Al Gore, but he also appears to be doing at least as well if not better than the last two Democrats to be elected president: Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

The poll found Obama narrowly leading McCain among white women 45 to 42 percent, a group that Bush won over Kerry with 55 percent. And more stunning, the poll showed Obama tied with McCain among white men, a group that Bush carried with 61 percent in 2004. Even Bill Clinton lost the white male vote in 1992 when he ran against the first George Bush.

The numbers are encouraging for Democrats, but there is a big caveat. A third of voters surveyed said they know someone who does not support Obama because of his race, the Times poll found. That question is important because it allows pollsters to determine racial bias without asking the respondent directly if their own vote might be affected by racial prejudice.

But the trends of support are still strong for Obama. The Illinois senator is "neck-and-neck" with McCain among rural voters in 13 swing states, according to a new poll released Thursday by the nonpartisan Center for Rural Strategies in Whitesburg, Kentucky. The poll found Obama with 36 percent of rural voters compared to 45 percent for McCain. Rural voters tend to be overwhelmingly white.

And a recent poll by Gallup found Obama has taken a lead with white independents (45-43 percent) for the first time in the campaign. Politico.com calls the group "a key demographic...that has eluded recent Democratic nominees."

Accoording to Politico, "Should Obama's support hold, he is positioned to become the first Democrat to win white independents in a two-man race since the advent of exit polling."