WASHINGTON (AP):

Bidding for a comeback, Republican presidential candidate John McCain yesterday set out a new plan to ease the economic pain of middle class Americans swept up in the country's financial chaos, as polls showed voters turning to Democrat Barack Obama for leadership in the financial turmoil.

During a swing through Pennsylvania, McCain, the 72-year-old Arizona senate veteran, called for the elimination of taxes on unemployment benefits, lowering what the government takes from seniors as they draw on retirement accounts and accelerating tax deductions for people forced to sell assets at a loss in the troubled market.

New plan

Looking toward today's third and final presidential debate, Obama produced his own new plan on Monday, calling, among other ideas, for a 90-day moratorium on home mortgage foreclosures and tax breaks to business that create new jobs.

US voters go to the polls in three weeks amid the worst economic uncertainty to grip the country in decades. Retirement savings are at risk in the gyrating stock market, the values of homes - the foundation of middle class economic security - are sinking, tens of thousands of homeowners face foreclosure and unemployment has been moving relentlessly upward.

McCain's candidacy has slumped under the weight of growing voter anxiety about the country's economic future, in part because of his inescapable links with unpopular fellow Republican, President George W. Bush.

New polling, meanwhile, held more discouraging news for McCain.

Surveys in Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota - states that typically vote Democratic, but that McCain once hoped to win - showed the Republican losing ground.

In Michigan, a Quinnipiac University poll for The Wall Street Journal and the web site of The Washington Post showed Obama leading his opponent 54 per cent to 38 per cent. Earlier this month, McCain announced he was pulling staff and advertising out of the state, ceding it to Obama.