McCain gains on Obama among voters in 4 key states, polls show

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is tightening the presidential race against Democratic rival Barack Obama in four key states, according to polls released this morning.

The four polls conducted by Quinnipiac University in partnership with the Wall Street Journal and washingtonpost.com show that McCain is running slightly ahead of Obama in Colorado, is close in Minnesota and has narrowed the gap in Michigan and Wisconsin.

In Colorado, McCain was ahead 46% to 44%. Obama led in Michigan, 46% to 42%; by 46% to 44% in Minnesota and by 50% to 39% in Wisconsin, according to the four state polls posted on the university website.

The new polling data come in a week in which Obama has virtually monopolized news coverage of the presidential campaign with a nine-day trip through war zones, the Mideast and Europe.

McCain has been struggling to attract any attention for his campaign swing that was supposed to focus on domestic issues. This morning, the likely GOP candidate visited a grocery story in Pennsylvania before heading to Ohio, both states that the McCain camp has targeted as key to victory in the November election.

The issue that seems to have helped McCain in the polls released today was his support of offshore drilling for oil. As gasoline prices have risen sharply, other polls have shown that Americans are more likely to support offshore drilling, especially if they are in states where drilling isn’t likely.

Voters in the four states support offshore drilling by margins of 22 to 31 percentage points. The polls also show that the voters in the four states would support drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by a range of seven to 12 percentage points.

Energy policy ranked as the most important issue, eclipsing the war in Iraq, which has garnered most of the attention this week because of Obama’s trip.

McCain’s increased support seems to have come across the board demographically, but especially from independents and men. McCain leads among independents in Michigan and Minnesota.

“Sen. Barack Obama’s post-primary bubble hasn’t burst, but it is leaking a bit,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, stated on the website.

“It’s been a good month for Sen. John McCain. His movement in these key states, not large except for Minnesota, jibes with the tightening we are seeing in the national polls.”

This morning, McCain met with voters in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., after canceling a visit to New Orleans because of bad weather. He then traveled to a German restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, campaigning about the same time that Obama spoke in Berlin.

michael.muskal@latimes.com.