With the New Hampshire primary tomorrow, Vice President Al Gore now has a significant lead over his rival, New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, according to a Dartmouth College-Associated Press poll released last Friday.
The poll also showed Texas Governor George W. Bush remains in a statistical dead heat with Arizona Senator John McCain for the state's Republican primary delegates.
The poll, conducted Jan. 23-26, indicated Gore and Bradley have reversed positions since the last poll was conducted just two weeks ago.
As voters focused on the campaign under a deluge of campaign publicity and media coverage during the week leading up to the primary, it was inevitable that the situation was going to become quite fluid, Director of the Rockefeller Center Linda Fowler said.
Among 365 likely Democratic voters questioned, 54 percent indicated they would vote for Gore at the polls tomorrow, while 40 percent expressed their support for Bradley.
Fowler suggested Bradley had a difficult time campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire at the same time and that Gore capitalized on the fact that his opponent was distracted.
"I think that Gore has really worked hard to focus his campaign and to present a more disciplined and more coherent message," Fowler said.
Demographically, last week's poll showed Gore leading Bradley among both men and women. Previous polls showed Bradley with an edge among male voters, an advantage he no longer has.
In the Republican race, frontrunners McCain and Bush remain in an extremely tight race, although Bush may have gained ground slightly since the last poll was conducted.
The results indicate McCain now leads Bush by a statistically insignificant three percentage points, 37-34, given the poll's 4.2 percent margin of error.
Other Republican candidates also improved their standings in the poll. Steve Forbes garnered 15 percent of the vote, up from 10 percent in the last two polls, while Alan Keyes more than doubled his support to 8 percent.
Regardless of which candidate they support, New Hampshire voters believe that Gore and Bush, the frontrunners in each party, are going to go on to win their respective nominations.
Seventy-nine percent of Republicans overall and 64 percent of McCain supporters of believe that Bush will eventually win the his party's nomination. Seventy-six percent of Democrats and 45 percent of Bradley supporters think Gore will come out on top.
A Gallup poll conducted nationally on Jan. 25-26 showed that Gore and Bush have very large leads over their opponents.
According to that poll, Gore leads Bradley 67-21 percent, while Bush is dominating the Republican field with 65 percent of respondents supporting his candidacy. McCain, a distant second, was the only other Republican Presidential hopeful in double digits with 15 percent.
Friday's poll was the third of four to be conducted by the Rockefeller Center in conjunction with the AP. The final poll will occur after the primary as a follow-up on Feb. 6-9.
