A new poll tonight from the US firm, Rasmussen, has put the black senator from Illionois, Barack Obama, ahead for the first time in the race for the Democratic nomination.

The pollster notes that most of the survey took place before last week’s TV debate of all the democrat challengers in south Carolina. A general view was that Hillary Clinton came out of that on top.

Rasmussen has been the most Obama-friendly pollster for some time and this latest survey compares with the 21% Clinton lead reported earlier in the month by Murdoch’s Fox News.

In the Real Clear Politics polling “head-to-heads” which averages all the major surveys Obama has been performing better against all the Republican challengers than any of his democrat opponents.

Thus the GOP front-runner, Giuliani, is 4.3% ahead of Clinton but is nearly one point behind Obama.

This race has got a long way to go although Betfair make Clinton the 1.32/1 favourite for the nomination with Obama on 2.5/1.

Those who got on Obama when we tipped him at 50/1 in May 2005 must be feeling pretty pleased with his progress.

Mike Smithson