McCain makes gains in AP-Yahoo news poll

April 18, 2008 at 12:00a.m.

WASHINGTON — Republicans are no longer underdogs in the race for the White House. To pull that off, John McCain has attracted disgruntled GOP voters, independents and even some moderate Democrats who shunned his party last fall.

Partly thanks to an increasingly likable image, the Republican presidential candidate has pulled even with the two Democrats still brawling for their party’s nomination, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo news poll released Thursday.

Of those who have moved toward McCain, about two-thirds voted for President Bush in 2004 but are now unhappy with him, including many independents who lean Republican.

Three candidates meet with British premier

WASHINGTON — The three presidential candidates discussed the Iraq war, climate change and U.S.-Britain relations with Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Thursday — and got to appear presidential alongside a foreign leader.

But if Brown prefers one candidate over another to become his ally by succeeding President Bush, he wouldn’t say. He sidestepped when asked at a White House news conference if he felt a special kinship with any one of the three competing senators.

“It is for Americans to decide who their president is going to be,” Brown said, as he stood with Bush in the Rose Garden.

Obama leads Clinton nationally, 49%-42%

Barack Obama has a 7-point lead nationally over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic presidential race, 49 percent to 42 percent, in the latest Gallup Poll. The survey had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. The poll was conducted April 14-16 and involved interviews with 1,270 Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters. The survey was a tracking poll, in which Gallup interviews voters every night and uses the results from the three most recent evenings.

Associated Press