Obama makes inroads into America's wealthiest | Politics | Re...

The billionaires and others in the wealthiest strata of U.S. society traditionally vote Republican, but that's changing this year, say advisers to the wealthy.

Despite plans to boost tax rates for the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans, Sen. Barack Obama is making the deepest inroads into wealthy voters in more than a decade for any Democratic presidential nominee, suggesting the November 4 election could mark a fundamental shift in voting patterns.

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"McCain does not enjoy the kind of plurality in the wealthy space that Republican candidates have enjoyed in the past," said Jim Taylor, vice chairman of the Harrison Group, a market research and strategy firm in Waterbury, Conn.

Taylor, who produces a quarterly "Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America," said the wealthy were once a solid Republican majority. "It's not anymore," he told the Reuters Wealth Management Summit on Tuesday, citing the findings of his latest survey of 614 affluent individuals taken September 19-23.

That showed McCain had 40 percent of the "affluent and wealth vote," compared with 33 percent for Obama, and given the recent stock market slide Taylor says he would be surprised if Obama's support hadn't risen further in the past few weeks.

In the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections, in contrast, about 80 percent of the wealthy supported the Republican nominee, Taylor said.

For the wealthiest American households, who have at least $1.6 million set aside each year for discretionary spending, McCain was favored over Obama by 49 percent to 28 percent.

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