• A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll of likely voters shows Obama with 50 percent to McCain's 41 percent.

• An Ipsos-McClatchy poll of registered voters shows Obama with 51 percent support versus 42 percent for McCain.

All three polls had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Also, McCain running mate Sarah Palin is being dispatched to campaign in usually Republican states such as Indiana, North Carolina and Virginia to shore up GOP support. However, McCain campaigned Tuesday in Pennsylvania and was to return there Thursday as well, a signal of the campaign's sustained effort to try to pick off that Kerry-won state offering a whopping 21 electoral votes.

To win, 270 are required.

McCain's strategy relies on keeping Florida, Missouri, North Carolina, Virginia, Indiana and Ohio in the GOP column along with 21 other Bush-won states that aren't seriously contested. That would give McCain 260 electoral votes. He would then have to win 10 more votes from a pool of contested states won by Bush (Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico) and Kerry (New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania).

Polls show Obama leading or tied in all of those.

Online traders Tuesday said Obama is likely to pick up 364 Electoral College votes, far surpassing the 270 needed to claim the presidency, by winning battleground states including Virginia, Ohio, Florida and Colorado.

Bettors on the Dublin-based Intrade's political futures market believe Obama will prevail in all the states won by Kerry in 2004, in addition to picking up other previously Republican strongholds such as Nevada and Missouri. McCain would pick up 174 electoral votes, winning states such as Texas, Indiana and West Virginia, according to Intrade.

Presidential debate

At 7 tonight on all major networks and news channels

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Contributing: Lisa Riley Roche, Deseret News; The Associated Press; Steven Thomma, McClatchy Newspapers; Kristin Jensen, Heidi Przybyla and Julianna Goldman, Bloomberg News