Arizona Sen. John McCain kicks off his general-election campaign trailing both potential Democratic nominees in hypothetical matchups, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Illinois Sen. Barack Obama leads McCain, who captured the delegates needed to claim the Republican nomination Tuesday night, by 12 percentage points among all adults in the poll. New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton enjoys a lead of 6 percentage points over the presumptive GOP nominee. Both Democrats are buoyed by moderates and independents in the head-to-heads and benefit from sustained negative public assessments of President Bush and the war in Iraq.
McCain, however, has eight months to overcome those perceptions, and when squared against Obama, who has amassed the most Democratic delegates, the Arizona senator has key advantages on foreign policy.
The poll of 1,126 adults was conducted before Tuesday and had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The Washington Post
