Geoff Elliott, St Louis, Missouri | October 03, 2008

SUPPORT for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has surged according to a series of polls yesterday.

The Illinois senator now heads Republican rival John McCain nationwide, including significant leads in battleground states in the lead-up to the November 4 poll.

The polls reinforced trends witnessed in the past two weeks as the meltdown on Wall Street and the US economy worked in the Democrat's favour and as the Palin bounce - the surge in polls for Senator McCain after he chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate - evaporated.

Voters were also impressed with Senator Obama in the first presidential debate last week, watched by 56million people.

Even more could watch today's debate between Ms Palin and Senator Obama's vice-presidential pick, Joe Biden.

Reputable polls from Quinnipiac University Polling put Senator Obama well ahead in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and even Virginia, which has not been won by a Democrat since 1964.

The trends were confirmed in a separate poll released by Time/CNN which also had Senator Obama ahead in critical battleground states and with similarly big margins.

Among the CNN poll's most dramatic findings is that Senator McCain is losing female voters faster than Sarah Palin attracted them. Senator Obama now leads Senator McCain by 17 points with women, 55per cent to 38per cent.

Before the conventions, women preferred Senator Obama by a margin of 10 points, 49per cent to 39per cent. After Senator McCain picked Ms Palin as his running mate, the gap narrowed to a virtual tie.

Insiders in the Obama camp warned that the swings looked too dramatic. They said the campaign's internal polling had not reflected such a fall in support as was shown in the news polls when Ms Palin rallied conservatives to the McCain standard.

In a worrying sign for Senator McCain, the polls indicated that independent voters had started to drift away from the McCain-Palin ticket. In the most dramatic shift, independent voters went from leaning towards Senator McCain by 45per cent to 44per cent on September 11 to favouring Senator Obama by 59per cent to 29per cent in the Quinnipiac poll.

The polls also indicated that the working-class vote, which had been difficult for Senator Obama to attract, appeared to be now heading towards the 47-year-old Illinois senator.

Quinnipiac University Polling Institute assistant director Peter Brown said it was "difficult to find a modern competitive presidential race that has swung so dramatically, so quickly and so sharply this late in the campaign".

Mr Brown said that, in the past 20 days, Senator Obama had gone from "seven points down to eight points up in Florida, while widening his leads to eight points in Ohio and 15 points in Pennsylvania". (The AUstralian)