Barack Obama may well be “within reach” of the Democratic presidential nomination, but his battle to win bellwether Ohio currently exceeds his grasp.

His rosy self-assessment came this week after he moved within 100 delegates of clinching his party's nod. But a new Quinnipiac University Poll today contained a host of bad numbers for his general-election campaigns in Ohio and two other battleground states, Florida and Pennsylvania.

Obama not only trails Republican John McCain overall in Ohio, but the Illinois senator lags among several groups crucial to victory in the Buckeye State, such as independents and voters from the southeastern part of the state.

“It is clear that Sen. Obama still has some work to do in Ohio,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “The assumption was that this year was going to be a Democratic cakewalk. The data indicate in battleground states it may not be true.”& lt; /p>

The general election is still more than five months away, of course. But Obama may need that time to bring supporters of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton back into the fold, Brown said. As of now, 26 percent of Clinton supporters in Ohio say they'd vote for McCain over Obama.

Obama does 11 points worse than Clinton against McCain in Ohio: She beats McCain by 7 points, Obama loses by 4.

Clinton, who topped Obama by 10 points in Ohio's March 4 primary, still outperforms him among most voting groups. For example, their totals from southeastern Ohio, a bellwether within a bellwether, show a stunning 37-point swing: Clinton beats McCain by 17, Obama loses to the Arizona senator by 20.

Those figures underscore Obama's difficulty with white voters: Clinton and McCain are dead even with white voters, while Obama is down 14 points to McCain.

McCain has his troubles in the poll, too. While 40 percent of Ohioans say Obama's long association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright makes it less likely they will vote for him, 44 percent say McCain's ties to President Bush make them less likely to support him. Bush had a 26 percent approval rating in the survey.

More Ohio voters picked the economy as the top issue than all other matters combined, and Obama is more trusted than McCain to handle the economy, 46 to 40. Obama also is trusted more to deal with gas prices (46 to 29) and health care (54 to 31).

However, McCain is trusted more to handle the war in Iraq (51 to 37), illegal immigration (42 to 37) and terrorism (56 to 31).

The prospective general-election matchups in Pennsylvania show Clinton by 13, 50-37, over McCain, and Obama by 6, 46 to 40.

In Florida, it's Clinton by 7, 48 to 41, while Obama trails McCain by 4, 45 to 41.

The telephone poll of 1,244 Ohio voters May 13 through Tuesday has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points. The poll is at http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x2882.xml?ReleaseID=1180.

drowland@dispatch.com