The stock market has dived, risen and fallen again as Congress and the Bush administration try to agree on a plan to prevent the crisis among Wall Street financial institutions from spreading.
In that climate of anxiety and dissatisfaction with President Bush, the poll found many continuing signs of encouragement for Obama.
A record 79% of respondents said the country was on the "wrong track." Voters believed Obama was more likely than McCain to make substantial changes in Washington, 51% to 27%.
More than half of all registered voters -- including a plurality of Republicans -- said that domestic issues such as the economy and healthcare were most important to them in choosing a presidential candidate.
Those are issues that more voters were confident Obama could address.
On the economy, registered voters preferred Obama's ideas over McCain's, 46% to 32%. On rising gas and oil prices, they preferred Obama, 46% to 31%. They said Obama would be better at dealing with healthcare, 54% to 25%.
"McCain has been forthright in admitting that economics is not his forte," said Nathan Pollack, 31, an Obama supporter in Denver who has only once before voted for a Democrat for president.
"Obama, while he's also not an expert, is more inclined to surround himself with people who are, and listen more closely."
Still, Obama is dogged by the perception that he does not have the right experience to be president. About half of all voters had a positive impression of him, but 37% did not.
The reason most often given for those negative feelings was that voters believed he was too inexperienced and didn't know the ways of Washington.
The poll results offer other hints about why the political advantages Obama enjoys have not translated into a commanding lead over McCain.
McCain has done a better job wooing independent voters than he did last month. Among registered voters who described themselves as independent, 34% supported Obama and 49% supported McCain.
That's a big swing from August, when Obama led among independents, 46% to 35%. And it's partly because that fluid category of voters this month included a larger portion of white men without college degrees, a group Obama has had a hard time wooing.
Some of those independents were people who supported Obama's Democratic primary rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton.
