Presidential race tightening in McCain's favor in 4 battleground states

A new Quinnipiac University poll, conducted in partnership with The Wall Street Journal and washingtonpost.com, shows the race tightening in a few battleground states, which could be good news for Republican candidate John McCain. (Read the full story here.)
But outside of the most prominent question, results from voters in Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado and Minnesota revealed good news and bad news for both candidates.
The bad news for McCain is that, across all four states, slightly less than 25% of voters said his age made them less likely to vote for him. McCain turns 72 next month. Only a small percentage in each state said Barack Obama’s race made them less likely to vote for him, but polling data for that question tends to be unreliable.
But the upside for McCain is that voters in all four states favor keeping troops in Iraq until the situation is more stable, which is McCain’s plan, as opposed to Obama’s plan to begin an immediate withdrawal with the goal of having troops out in 18 months.
McCain could use that glimmer of hope this week as President George W. Bush agreed to negotiate a “time horizon” with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. And the Iraqi government announced that removing troops by 2010 seemed like a reasonable timeline.
Once again, voters in all four states ranked the economy as their No. 1 concern. Even so, a majority of voters in each state said their own economic situation was “holding steady” as opposed to “getting ahead” or “falling behind.”