Ohio: Obama up big

Barack Obama 50
John McCain 39

Barack Obama begins the general election in Ohio with a double digit lead over John McCain. It's a major improvement from PPP's most recent previous Ohio poll, taken at the height of the Jeremiah Wright controversy in March, which showed Obama trailing McCain 49-41.

The key difference for Obama is that he's got his party behind him to a much greater extent than he did then. He leads 73-17 with self identified Democrats in this survey, compared to just a 62-27 advantage then. That's a pretty good indication of a unity bounce with Clinton supporters who may have been reluctant to say they would support him if he was the nominee then starting to get behind him.

The poll results show no gender gap- Obama leads equally with both men and women. Obama is winning independent voters 45-32, has a small 46-42 lead with white voters while showing his usual major (75-21) advantage with black voters, and leads with every age group except voters over 65.

Full results here.