Obama 'heads for landslide'

Barack Obama has opened up a commanding lead of as much as 14 points over John McCain in the closing stages of the race for the White House, latest polls show today.

As the Republican candidate's campaign appeared to falter, one poll showed the popularity gap between Mr Obama and Mr McCain has doubled from seven per cent earlier this month to 14 per cent. The Pew Research Centre's latest poll found Mr Obama's support had grown to 52 per cent of voters against 38 per cent for his rival.

Today's Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll shows that Mr Obama's lead has grown to 12 points with crucial independent and women voters increasingly moving to his side. Pollsters are beginning to talk about a landslide win for Mr Obama.

With less than two weeks before the 4 November election, Mr Obama leads Mr McCain 52 per cent to 40 per cent among probable voters in the latest three-day tracking poll, which has a margin of error of 2.9 points. Mr Obama has made steady gains over the last four days and has tripled his lead on Mr McCain in the past week.

"Obama's expansion is really across the board," pollster John Zogby said. "It seems to be among almost every demographic group."

The Illinois senator saw his lead among women, who are expected to play a decisive role in this election, increase to 18 points from 16 yesterday.

Independent voters, who have been the target of intense campaign efforts by both sides, have now swung behind Mr Obama by a 30-point margin, 59 per cent to 29 per cent.

Mr McCain continued to attack his rival over his lack of foreign policy experience. He said it would make Mr Obama vulnerable to a terror attack in the first months of his presidency as terrorists would seek to test his administration within the first six months.

His comments were seen as an attempt to switch the focus of the election back to national security issues and away from the ailing economy.

Speaking on CNN last night, Mr McCain said: "He was wrong about the surge in Iraq. He still fails to acknowledge that he was wrong. He was wrong when he said Georgia should show restraint. So I can understand why the American people might be concerned." Of al Qaeda, he added: "The thing that probably may encourage them a little is that Senator Obama has been wrong."

Mr McCain had hoped to use his foreign policy experience to his advantage during the final weeks of the election campaign. But the financial crisis on Wall Street has completely overshadowed every topic in the election campaign.