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Fox News Poll

FOX News Poll: In Key Decisions, Voters Would Prefer McCain's Advice

By Dana Blanton , Fox News
Published | Updated

Barack Obama and John McCain are in a tight race for the White House, but at this stage many voters are still undecided. In the latest FOX News poll, Obama has a slim three-percentage point edge over McCain (42 percent-39 percent), while nearly one of five voters is undecided.

These undecided voters will likely determine the presidential election outcome. So what do they feel in their guts about the two candidates? The FOX News poll tried to get at that question by asking: If you had to make the “toughest decision” of your life, who would you rather get advice from — Obama or McCain?

• Click here to view full results of the poll (pdf).

Based on that question, there are signs that undecided voters may be more inclined to move to McCain than to Obama. The largest number of undecideds – 38 percent – would rather get advice from McCain – that’s nearly three times as many as the 13 percent that would go to Obama. The remaining say “neither” (27 percent) or are unsure (18 percent).

Furthermore, independent voters pick McCain by a 15-point margin (41 percent – 26 percent).

As one would expect, most Obama voters — 78 percent — say they would go to him for advice. Similarly, fully 83 percent of McCain voters would consider him their trusted guru on a tough life decision.

While 68 percent of Democrats would go to Obama for advice, nearly one of five – 18 percent – would pick McCain. Most Republicans (74 percent) would go to McCain, with less than one in 10 saying they would pick Obama (7 percent).

Overall, slightly more voters say they would turn to McCain in this situation (43 percent to 37 percent Obama).

In such a tight race for the White House, where both candidates have positive favorable ratings and strong support from their party faithful, there are some troubling signs for Obama from undecided voters

Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from Aug. 19 to Aug. 20. The poll has a 3-point error margin.