New Polls Put Barack Obama Ahead In Democratic Presidential Race

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) has suddenly surged ahead of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) in some national polls. The junior senator from Illinois has at least an 8-point lead over the former first lady and some pundits have attributed the spike to the much-talked about speech on race he delivered last week.

Gallup's daily tracking poll on Friday found Obama has 50 percent of the Democratic vote, nationwide, while Clinton has fallen to just 42 percent. Only 6 percent of Democrats remain undecided while 2 percent support other candidates. The results, based on polling from March 25-27 among 1,218 Democrats, have a 3 percent margin of error.

Obama has a larger lead in the latest Pew Research survey. He has 49 percent while Clinton trails with 39 percent, according to the poll of 1,503 voters from March 19-22.

However, an NBC/Wall Street Journal survey says the race is still tied at 45 percent each. This poll was conducted from March 24-25 among 700 registered voters nationwide. Its margin of error is 3.7 percent.

Some pundits have said the sudden slight increase in Obama's standing in national polls was because of a speech on race relations Obama made last week. "The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery... Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law," Obama had said of the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

Surveys conducted on voters' reception of Obama's remarks said most voters were generally satisfied with the junior senator's opinions on race relations. There were, however, blogs that said white male voters, particularly those in delegate-rich Pennsylvania, found Obama's remarks "condescending."

Some observers have said the prolonged battle between Clinton and Obama may eventually hurt the Democratic party. Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Howard Dean expressed such a concern for the first time on Friday, when he told superdelegates that they had only until July 1 to make their decision about who to support.