Just over two weeks before Election Day, Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama has slightly widened his lead over Republican John McCain in New Hampshire, according to a Concord Monitor poll.

A little less than a month ago, before the three presidential debates, Obama led McCain, 48 percent to 44 percent, in a poll conducted for the Monitor by Research 2000. In the new poll, conducted entirely after the last of the debates, 50 percent of likely voters chose Obama and 43 percent chose McCain.

Among those expressing a preference for president, 92 percent said their choice was a firm one, up from 87 percent a month ago. Obama, in particular, seems to have closed the deal with a few more voters: In September, 19 percent of Obama voters said they could still change their mind. In the new poll, that number was 10 percent.

See tomorrow's Concord Monitor for much more from the poll, including results from the U.S. Senate race, U.S. House races and governor's race.

Methodology
The poll was conducted for the Monitor by Research 2000 of Rockville, Md., from Oct. 17-19. A total of 600 likely voters who vote regularly in state elections were interviewed statewide by telephone. Those interviewed were selected by the random variation of the last four digits of telephone numbers. A cross-section of exchanges was utilized in order to ensure an accurate reflection of the state. Quotas were assigned to reflect the voter registration of distribution by county.

The margin for error, according to standards customarily used by statisticians, is no more than plus or minus 4 percentage points. This means that there is a 95 percent probability that the “true” figure would fall within that range if the entire population were sampled. The margin for error is higher for any subgroup, such as for gender or party affiliation.

SAMPLE:
Men 287 (48%)
Women 313 (52%)
Democrats 187 (31%)
Republicans 178 (30%)
Independents/Other 235 (39%)
District 1 300 interviews
District 2 300 interviews