Polls show Obama beating McCain

Sen. Barack Obama regularly makes the argument that he will be a stronger general election candidate than his primary opponent, Sen. Hillary Clinton.

In a speech at a campaign rally on Feb. 10, 2008, he continued to expound on that theme, this time citing poll numbers.

"The last six polls, including this week's Time magazine, show that I beat John McCain by six or seven points," Obama declared at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va.

At the time of of his speech, several polls indeed showed Obama beating McCain by a six-point or more margin. The Time magazine poll showed him beating McCain by seven points, 48 to 41. An Associated Press/Ipsos showed him winning by six points, 48 to 42. A CNN poll showed him winning by eight points, 52 to 44.

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Bill Richardson

stated on September 3, 2007

"Iowa, for good reason, for constitutional reasons, for reasons related to the Lord, should be the first caucus and primary."

But those are three polls, not six. (For a neat summary of recent Obama-McCain polling, check out this link from RealClearPolitics.com; we accessed it on Feb. 11, 2008.) We weren't able to find three other recent polls showing similar results.

It's possible that Obama has access to private polls we haven't seen. We asked the campaign for a response but didn't hear back.

So we will deduct a small amount on the Truth-O-Meter for his citing of "the last six polls," but Obama's larger point is correct. Polls show he is winning against McCain, while Clinton either loses to McCain or beats him by a smaller margin. So we award this statement a Mostly True.