Although George W. Bush’s lead over Al Gore has either increased or
decreased, depending on which new poll is considered, the Texas governor and
GOP presidential hopeful continues to upstage rival Democrat Al Gore in
popular polling surveys.
According to the
Portrait of America poll released this morning, Bush has expanded a six-point lead earlier this week to seven points. He now leads Gore 47 percent to 40 percent.
POA conducted the telephone survey of 3,000 likely voters on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 23, 24 and 25. Analysts added that the poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 1.8 percent with a 95 percent level of confidence — a margin Bush has easily surpassed all week.
“The question now is whether Al Gore can find a way to make one last surge to make the race competitive on election day,” POA analysts said today.
In the third-party races, Green Party nominee Ralph Nader — who has refused to back off his candidacy in lieu of ceding liberal voters back to the vice president — has 3.3 percent; Reform’s Patrick J. Buchanan has 1.1 percent; Libertarian Harry Browne has 0.7 percent; Natural Law Party nominee John Hagelin has 0.2 percent; and Constitution Party nominee Howard Phillips has 0.1 percent. POA said 7.7 percent of voters were “not sure.”
One shift noted by POA in electoral vote contests: More states are shifting from the “leaning Bush” to “solid Bush” camp over the past week.
Meanwhile, in
the daily Voter.com tracking poll also released this morning, Bush’s lead has contracted from a six-point lead to just four points, 44 to 40 percent — a figure that is still outside of the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.
The Voter.com poll results are based on 1,000 phone responses gathered over four nights. The Voter.com Battleground poll, released today, is part of a series of tracking polls published each weekday until Election Day. The survey is conducted by Democratic pollster Celinda Lake of Lake, Snell, Perry & Associates and Republican pollster Ed Goeas of the Tarrance Group.
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