First-time voters favor Obama over McCain by a nearly 3 to 1 margin, according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll. The poll, conducted Oct. 17-20, found Obama supporters leading McCain supporters among first-time voters by 73 to 26 percent.

That’s a much bigger margin than the Democratic candidate enjoyed four years ago, when exit polls reported first-timers backing John Kerry over President Bush by only 7 percentage points, 53-46.

But the pollsters noted that turnout among first-time voters is challenging to predict. “That means targeted get-out-the-vote efforts can matter particularly with this group — not just in how many vote, but in how those who do vote divide between the candidates,” they said.

First-time likely voters this year include three times as many Democrats as Republicans, a sharp shift from 2004, when party registrations were about even.

A separate study found that voters between the ages of 18 and 34 rank experience low among the qualities they want in the next president.

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First-time voters in the battleground state of Pennsylvania talk about whom they’re voting for and why.

Both Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama have promised change from the policies of the Bush administration. Each has tried to paint the other as out of touch with “mainstream” America. But how do they really compare?

Based on their votes in the Senate, the two were most alike on social issues but far apart on economic and foreign policy. McCain and Obama voted the same way on four of 12 “key” votes identified by the National Journal for the 109th Congress (2005-06). Both voted in favor of funding for embryonic-stem-cell research and immigration reform that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to earn citizenship. They both opposed drilling in the Alaska Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and a constitutional amendment to prohibit same-sex marriage. They differed on estate taxes, entitlement spending, the minimum wage, abortion, free trade, terrorism, Iraq and the nomination of conservative Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

Overall, National Journal ranked Obama as the most liberal senator in 2007, after ranking as the 16th- and 10th-most-liberal during his first two years in the Senate. The magazine said McCain missed too many votes (voting on only 44 of 99 votes used in the ratings) for it to rank him in 2007.

In 2006, before he began campaigning for president, McCain ranked slightly left of center on social issues (more liberal than 53 percent of his colleagues) while Obama ranked in the 77th percentile on the liberal scale, according to National Journal rankings.

McCain was more conservative than 64 percent of his Senate colleagues on economic issues,  while Obama voted more liberal than 87 percent. On foreign affairs there also was a big gap: McCain was more conservative than 58 percent while Obama was more liberal than 85 percent.
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