Barack Obama has made huge strides among African-American voters since October, according to a national CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released today. This reverses what had been a 24 percentage point deficit to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

In the poll, 59 percent of African-American Democrats support Obama while only 24 percent support Clinton. Obama, who has a large lead over Clinton with African-American men, also has turned around his support with African-American women, once a strong support base for the female senator.

African-Americans also are now less likely to believe that Clinton “understands the problems and concerns of blacks.” Only 74 percent of African-American Democrats polled responded that she does, compared to an 88 percent rating in April 2007. Obama currently garners 82 percent on this question.

Among African-American Democrats, 42 percent believe the country would be better off in an Obama presidency than it is right now. Thirty-five percent believe the same about Clinton.

Interviews with 1,393 adult Americans, including an oversample of African-Americans, conducted by telephone by Opinion Research Corporation on Jan. 14-17. The margin of error for results based on the total sample is ‘ 3 percentage points. The sample also includes 513 interviews among African-Americans (‘ 4.5 points) and 743 non-Hispanic whites (‘ 3.5 points). The sample of 448 registered Democrats has a margin of error of ‘ 4.5 points.