WASHINGTON — Barack Obama is leading Republican presidential rival John McCain in two battleground states, Florida and Ohio, where voters have more confidence in his ability to handle the troubled economy, a new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll has found.
In Ohio, a state that has been battered for years by unemployment and plant closings, the Democrat is leading McCain, 49% to 40%, among people likely to vote.
In Florida, a state that was considered a likely win for Republicans not long ago, McCain is trailing, 50% to 43%.
In both states, Obama has opened commanding leads over McCain among women, young people, first-time voters, and blacks and other minorities.
McCain still is widely viewed as far better equipped than Obama to deal with terrorism and the war in Iraq. But voters in Ohio and Florida do not see those issues as paramount in light of the turmoil in the economy and on Wall Street.
The poll results undercut McCain's closing argument that Obama is no friend of working people such as Joe the Plumber -- the Ohio man who said he feared his taxes would rise if Obama were elected.
Among registered voters in Ohio, the survey found, Obama won support from 52% of white, working-class voters, compared with 38% for McCain. The poll defined "working class" as people with no college degree and a household income of less than $50,000.
"Barack Obama understands Joe the Plumber better than John McCain," said Theresa Riddle, a 48-year-old Republican in Springfield, Ohio, who participated in the survey and spoke in a follow-up interview. "When John McCain talks about the economy, he says nothing."
Others worry that Obama has too little experience to manage the far-reaching economic and financial crisis gripping the world.
"McCain's been in politics" for a long time, said Jerry Mills, a 40-year-old welder in Edgerton, Ohio, whose wife was just laid off. "Obama has been on one side of the city of Chicago. Going from Chicago to the entire U.S. is a big jump."
Still, Obama has apparently impressed more voters as having the temperament and personality to be president: Nearly 6 in 10 respondents in each state said the Democratic nominee was temperamentally better suited than McCain.
Both candidates have begun locking down some of their supporters in early voting in these two battlegrounds. Among poll respondents who already have voted in Ohio, Obama has a big lead: 57% to 35%. But McCain is slightly ahead in Florida among early-voting respondents, 49% to 45%.
