Obama leads Clinton in US polls

By Our Reporter - 04.01.2008

Hope is rising for the African-American presidential candidate, Barack Obama, as the United States entered its first presidential election party primaries on Thursday in the state of Iowa, Empowered Newswire has reported.

Obama, who is one of the leading candidates in the US Democratic Party, was leading his closest rival in the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, in a new poll released on Wednesday, 24 hours to yesterday’s first primary.

According to Des Moines (Iowa) Register poll before Thursday primary, Obama was the choice of 32 per cent of likely Democratic participants in the caucus-like primary in the state of Iowa.

Hillary, wife of the former President Bill Clinton, polled 25 per cent while John Edwards, who was the party’s democratic vice presidential candidate four years ago, garnered 24 per cent.

All the three Democratic Party presidential hopefuls are senators or was one. Clinton’s wife is a New York junior senator, while Obama is the junior senator from Illinois, where Chicago is located. As for Edwards, he was formerly a senator from the state of North Carolina.

Previous polling had been showing either a statistical tie between Obama and Clinton, or Clinton getting an edge. However, it is not the first time a particular poll results would show Obama ahead of Clinton even if by a thin line.

Obama, born by a white American mother to a Kenyan immigrant in the United States, has been mobilising the support of Africans in the diaspora, using his base in Chicago as a launching pad.