Polls show US presidential race still very tight

WASHINGTON - Poll results released on Monday were divided on who leads the US presidential race, as two gave a slight edge to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry and one showed a slim margin of voters favoring President George W. Bush. The close race turns up the pressure for Wednesday’s third and final presidential debate in Tempe, Arizona, when the White House rivals will make their case directly to millions of voters on domestic issues. An ABC news poll said the Republican Bush was backed by 50 percent of voters because of his clarity, leadership and position on Iraq and terrorism. Democratic nominee Kerry attracted 46 percent of likely voters, according to the survey. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll, taken after Bush and Kerry’s second debate on Friday, showed 49 percent of likely voters for Kerry versus 48 percent for Bush. Among registered voters, the two men were tied at 48 percent. The latest three-day Reuters/Zogby tracking poll, released on Monday, showed Kerry expanding his slight lead over Bush to still-slim 47-44 percent margin. Bush’s support dropped one point and Kerry’s support rose one point in the new survey. The poll found 6 percent of likely voters still undecided with barely more than three weeks to go until the Nov. 2 election. Sixteen percent of the voters who identified themselves as independents were undecided. Bush made small gains among young voters and Kerry picked up strength among women voters ahead of the final debate. “Wednesday’s debate is vital because many sub-groups remain close and because so many independents have yet to make up their minds,” pollster John Zogby said. The ABC poll said 15 percent of likely voters are not completely committed to either candidate and about 6 percent are saying they are undecided or that there is a “good chance” they will change their mind. ABC’s poll of 2,409 adults was conducted between Oct. 7 and Oct. 10 and included 2,026 registered voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. The USA Today/CNN/Gallup telephone survey of 1,015 adults, including 793 likely voters, was conducted on Oct. 9 and Oct. 10. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points. For the likely voter sample, the margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points. The Reuters/Zogby tracking poll of 1,214 likely voters was taken Friday through Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.  

Last chance for a knockout: Bush and Kerry gird for final debate

SANTE FE, New Mexico - President George W. Bush and his challenger John Kerry have one last chance Wednesday to land a decisive blow in their knife-edge White House race, with a final televised debate. The rivals face a third head-to-head clash in Tempe in the southwestern state of Arizona, in a session dedicated to domestic issues, after spending the previous two encounters slugging it out on Iraq and terrorism. Bush rebounded in the second debate in St. Louis, Missouri last week after a disappointing showing in the first encounter, where Kerry rescued his previously lagging campaign to pull level in opinion polls. Both men spent time between the debates stumping for votes in critical battleground states like Colorado, New Mexico, Florida and Ohio, amid signs a win could be eked out by wafer-thin margins. As Kerry pulled back into a tie with Bush in most polls, the tone of the campaign took a decided negative turn, a trend which continued Monday with both candidates in New Mexico, a state Bush lost by less than 400 votes in 2000. The president seized on a comment by Kerry in an interview with the New York Times magazine in which he said he hoped to reduce terrorism to the level of a “nuisance.” “Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance. Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive, destroying terrorist networks and spreading freedom and liberty around the world,” Bush said. Kerry’s camp hit right back, accusing Bush of desperation and of adopting a tried and tested tactic of twisting the veteran Massachusetts senator’s words. Aides also dug up a quote by Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security advisor in the White House with Bush’s father in which he spoke of the need to reduce terrorism to the level of a ”horrible nuisance.” “The President is flailing, he is contorting himself, now he finds himself rejecting today the very words of his daddy’s national security advisor,” said a Kerry aide on condition of anonymity. Bush will try and hammer home a similar line of attack in the debate, exposing what his aides believe is a pattern of inconsistency and extreme liberal policies in Kerry’s two decades-old Senate record with his new mantra “he can run, but he can’t hide.” Kerry will skewer Bush as too stubborn to change course not just faced with a deepening insurgency in Iraq but with an economy that is shedding jobs at home. “It’s not just that Bush has failed in the last four years, he can only bring you more of that,” the Kerry aide said. Kerry will enter the debate buoyed by polls that show that he has eased into statistical level pegging with Bush. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll Monday gave Kerry a 49 to 48 percent lead over Bush among likely voters three weeks before the November 2 presidential election. A prior poll had given Bush a 54 to 40 percent edge in mid-September. A Washington Post/ABC News tracking poll three weeks before the November 2 ballot put Bush on top 51 to 46 percent and a survey by the Rasmussen organization gave the Republican a four-point margin at 49.5 to 45.5 percent. But a tracking poll by the Zogby International group showed Kerry, the four-term senator from Massachusetts, with a three-point edge at 47-44 percent heading into the final stretch of an acrimonious, marathon campaign. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, Kerry accused Bush of breaking a pledge to make OPEC hike oil production, and vowed to wean US consumers off Middle East oil. “I want America’s energy future, I want America’s security to be in the hands of Americans and in our own ingenuity, our own innovation not the Saudi royal family or others around the world,” Kerry said, pointing to record oil prices.