Opinion: Obama gets initial poll bounce over McCain for Berlin, Paris stops

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An initial daily tracking poll by Gallup shows that all the media coverage of the European portion of Barack Obama’s foreign jaunt has produced a bump in approval for the freshman senator.

Before the trip, designed to produce just such political progress for the Democrat’s campaign, Obama had a statistically insignificant two point lead over Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Even during the first days of his field trip in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, Jordan and Israel, the poll numbers held steady.

But Gallup reports a bulge in approval began showing up in polling done while Obama was in Germany and France. His lead is now up to seven points, according to our friends over at the Swamp. Tonight, he returned to his home on Chicago’s South Side.

It’s 48% for Obama now and 41% for McCain.

Mark Silva has the rest of the new early poll results’ details here.

--Andrew Malcolm