As the weekend before the Nov. 7 presidential election approaches, GOP nominee George W. Bush continues to garner comfortable leads over Democratic challenger Al Gore in national polls.
According to the
Portrait of America poll released this morning, Bush leads Gore by 5 points, 47 to 42 percent, meaning the vice president is running out of time to reverse the strong trends toward the Texas governor with just five days to go.
The telephone survey of 3,000 likely voters was conducted on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Oct. 30, 31 and Nov. 1. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 1.8 percent with a 95 percent level of confidence.
According to POA analysts, Bush also has an advantage in electoral votes.
“In the Electoral College, POA’s survey shows Bush leading in states with 231 electoral votes,” analysts said today.
Meanwhile, “Gore is leading in states with 168 electoral votes. That means Bush needs to win just 39 of the 139 toss-up votes to reach the magic number of 270. Al Gore needs to win 102 of those 139 toss-up votes,” POA said.
In the third-party races, POA said Green Party nominee Ralph Nader has dropped to just 3.7 percent; Libertarian Harry Browne and Reform’s Patrick J. Buchanan are tied at 1 percent; Natural Law Party nominee John Hagelin has 0.2 percent; and Constitution Party nominee Howard Phillips has 0.1 percent. POA said 5.4 percent of voters were “not sure.”
“Demographic data taken from our daily tracking poll shows 76 percent of black voters support Gore, 14 percent support Bush. Among white voters, 53 percent support Bush, 36 percent Gore,” POA said
Meanwhile, in
the daily Voter.com tracking poll, also released this morning, Bush’s lead remains the same as yesterday — 5 points — but is down from a high last week of 8 points. In the Voter.com survey, Bush leads 45 to 40 percent — a figure outside the poll’s margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.
“Green Party nominee Ralph Nader received support from five percent and Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan was supported by 1 percent. Ten percent of respondents remain undecided,” Voter.com analysts said.
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.
“Bush has taken a lead among female voters, favored by 43 percent to 41 percent for Gore,” this morning’s survey results said. “This result has been propelled by the governor opening up a lead among white women (47-36 percent).”
“For nearly the entire tracking period beginning Sept. 10, Bush and Gore have evenly split the vote among this group. Bush continues to lead among married voters (51-35 percent) and men (47-38 percent),” Voter.com said.
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