New polls of likely voters in Minnesota and three other battleground states found that Barack Obama has retained a slight lead over John McCain.
In Minnesota, the Wall Street Journal/Washingtonpost.com found Obama ahead 47 percent to 45 percent, essentially unchanged from a poll done by Quinnipiac University for those news organizations in July.
Given the poll's 2.7 percentage-point margin of sampling error, that makes the race in Minnesota essentially a tossup.
In Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado, the polls showed that a slightly larger Obama lead also has changed little in the past two months. The poll placed Obama up by seven points in Wisconsin (49-42), four in Michigan (48-44) and four in Colorado (49-45).
A flurry of recent polls in Minnesota have shown that the presidential race is tightening, prompting both campaigns to ramp up their efforts in a state that has long been reliably Democratic.
The Quinnipiac polls also show that Obama has stayed ahead of McCain because voters are more likely to see the Democrat as the candidate of change.
In Minnesota's U.S. Senate race, the poll found incumbent Republican Norm Coleman ahead of DFL challenger Al Franken, 49 percent to 42 percent. A Quinnipiac Poll conducted two months ago showed Coleman with a 53-38 lead. Neither of those polls included Independence Party candidate Dean Barkley.
BOB VON STERNBERG
