Clinton breaks through 50 percent barrier in new poll

Hillary Clinton woke up to more good news this morning.

Fresh off announcing that she had outraised Barack Obama for the first time, Clinton also broke through the key 50 percent barrier for the first time in a national poll.

In the ABC News/Washington Post survey, her lead has ballooned to 53 percent to 20 percent for Obama, whose support is at the lowest level of the year. Clinton's numbers are up 12 percentage points from last month, while Obama's are down seven percentage points.

John Edwards remains in third place, with 13 percent, according to the poll. All the other Democrats remain in single digits.

Beyond the bottom-line support, the survey shows that Clinton leads by wide margins among Democratic voters on which candidate they trust most on issues such as healthcare, the economy, and the war in Iraq.

In the Republican field, Rudy Giuliani continues to lead with 34 percent, Fred Thompson is a distant second at 17 percent, John McCain dropped to 12 percent, and Mitt Romney stayed at 11 percent. The other Republicans are in single digits, though Mike Huckabee has risen to 8 percent.

The poll was conducted Sept. 27-30 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points among Democratic voters and 5 percentage points among Republicans.