Since then, the congressional bailout plan and other rescue measures from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have failed to ease a credit crisis that is threatening many businesses and causing panic among investors. In national opinion surveys, Obama has risen from a statistical tie to a lead, according to an average of polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com.
As the financial crisis deepened in recent weeks, Harold P. Pelzel, 62, a utilities consultant and lifelong Republican, was moved to volunteer for Obama's campaign in Cary, N.C., a bastion of moderate conservatives near Raleigh that Obama is targeting for crossover votes.
Pelzel said he decided to support Obama during the Democratic primary due to the souring economy, but now the continued downturn has given him the time and motivation to work the phones for the campaign. He was downgraded from full-time employee to contractor at the consulting firm where he works -- and consulting contracts have dried up recently as companies cut back, giving him time to volunteer.
Now, at the campaign office in downtown Cary, Pelzel said he spoke almost every day with conservative or Republican voters who tell him they are also leaning toward Obama because of the faltering economy.
"They tell me: 'I've been a Republican all my life, but I can't support them any more,' " Pelzel said, adding: "I don't even have to try to convert them. Most of them decide to switch on their own."
In conservative Naples, Fla. -- a heavily white, Republican area -- retirees and other residents have been hard hit by plummeting property values, rising tax bills and skyrocketing insurance premiums -- and McCain advisors, citing internal campaign polling, concede that the GOP nominee is "underperforming" there.
Last week in Naples, 300 donors attended an Obama fundraiser hosted by Republican real estate developer Jack Antaramian. A former Bush donor who had attended the inauguration, Antaramian said the fundraiser drew a number of Republicans who had grown uncertain of McCain's ability to lead on economic issues.
Antaramian said he couldn't support Republicans when family members were losing their homes to foreclosure. And if McCain should die or leave office, he said, "I just can't visualize Sarah Palin having the capability of dealing with the magnitude of events" of the financial crisis.
"I really believe that Obama has a much better grasp of what the middle class is going through right now," Antaramian said.
