Democratic White House hopeful Barack Obama has surged to a 15-point lead over Republican John McCain in the latest Newsweek poll.
It is by far the biggest margin of any recent survey.
The magazine's poll gave Senator Obama 51% to 36% for Senator McCain among registered voters nationwide -- three times the margin of four to five points that other polls this week have given the Illinois senator.
Barack Obama is enjoying a post-primary bounce after seeing off the dogged challenge of his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton earlier this month, and supporters of the former first lady are flocking to his side, Newsweek said.
The new poll also finds that only 14% of Americans say they are satisfied with the direction of the country.
The magazine cautioned that polls this far out from November's election can be unreliable, but noted that Barack Obama was performing much better than either of the Democrats' last two nominees, John Kerry and Al Gore, at this stage.
Its poll, which was conducted by telephone over June 18-19 and had a four-point margin of error, backed other surveys that give Barack Obama a commanding lead over John McCain on the economy and jobs.
The Democrat also led by 48% to 34 on energy policy but had a narrower margin of six points on the Iraq war, an area where McCain has led in other polls.
The Democrat's hefty overall lead was built on a major slice of Hillary Clinton's support, women, who preferred him to John McCain by 21 points – 54% versus 33.
In its previous survey last month, Newsweek found that 34% of Clinton supporters would rather vote for John McCain than Barack Obama in November.
But now, that figure was down to 18%, with 69% backing Obama.
Registered independents, a pivotal voting bloc, were evenly split in last month's poll but now support Obama by 48% to 36% for McCain.
