Obama leads McCain by 12 points in Colorado according to Rocky Mountain News Poll!

[FrenchieCat]

Sen. Barack Obama has surged to a commanding, double-digit lead in Colorado amid soaring anxiety about the country's direction and a massive shift of independent voters into the Democratic column, a new poll finds.

After weeks of devastating economic news, Obama now leads by 12 percentage points - 52 percent to 40 percent - in the latest Rocky Mountain News/CBS4 News poll.

"Clearly, the beginning of October is not a happy time in American history, and voters are sort of internalizing the financial crisis," said pollster Lori Weigel.

Since early August, when Colorado independents were almost evenly split between the two presidential candidates, Obama has opened up a more than 2-to-1 advantage in that pivotal voting group, the poll found.

In the latest survey, only 11 percent of Coloradans said the country was heading in the right direction, while 83 percent said it was on the wrong track.

At a time when Republicans control the White House, that pessimism has created a steep climb for Sen. John McCain, who is now struggling to stay competitive in Colorado and several other states that President Bush carried in 2004.
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The survey of 500 likely Colorado voters was conducted Tuesday through Thursday by Public Opinion Strategies of Alexandria, Va., the largest Republican polling firm in the country. Obama's lead was well outside the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 4.38 percentage points.

Longtime Democratic consultant Rick Ridder, who consulted on the poll, said the economic tempest has created a tidal wave for change.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/oct/24/rockycbs4-poll-obama-has-12-point-lead-state/