The oft-noted enthusiasm gap that favors Democrat Barack Obama becomes starkly apparent in a new poll out today.

But the more telling finding in the survey by the Associated Press and Yahoo News is that many independents -- who typically decide presidential elections -- are not very excited and are very undecided.

Only 21 percent of independent voters -- being targeted by both Obama and Republican John McCain -- said they find the election interesting -- down from 31 percent in November -- and just 7 percent say it's exciting. About a quarter support each candidate, about 40 percent remain undecided, and half say they could still change their minds.

The poll also found that supporters of Hillary Clinton are still cool toward Obama, who is trying to unite Democrats. Just 12 percent of former Clinton loyalists say they are excited about the campaign, one-third the excitement level among Obama's longer-term backers.

Among each candidate's core supporters, Obama's -- African-Americans, Democrats, and liberals -- are more enthusiastic and have become more excited about the race since fall than whites, Republicans, and conservatives, who tend to support McCain.

The AP-Yahoo News poll, conducted by Knowledge Networks, has surveyed the same 2,000 adults since November. While 45 percent expressed a great deal or quite a bit of interest in the campaign back then, 60 percent say so now. The new survey was conducted June 13-23 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.