Politics

Bush Has Erased Gore's Lead

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

September 25, 2000 / 1:46 PM EDT / CBS

George W. Bush is back.

Six weeks before Election Day, polls show the Republican presidential nominee to have all but erased Al Gore's lead.

Weekend polls by Gallup, Newsweek and Fox TV showed the Nov. 7 race to be a statistical dead heat.

The vice president led by 3 percentage points in a Newsweek survey - he had led by 14 points a week ago - but Bush jumped into the lead by a single point in a Gallup daily tracking poll. In the Fox poll, the candidates were tied.

The surveys followed a good week for the Texas governor, who enjoyed successful appearances on TV chat shows and managed to get his campaign back on message.

Gore was dogged by allegations that he invented a story about his mother-in-law paying three times as much for a drug as his dog. Gore aides said the story was true but acknowledged that Gore got his figures from a congressional study rather than from actual family bills.

The vice president, in a telephone conference call with reporters Sunday, said again that he puts no faith in polls.

“I don't think they have much relevance to the race. People will vote on Nov. 7,” Gore said.

But Bush aides said there had been a sea change.

“There's been a definite shift in the attitude among voters in the past week,” said Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer in a conference call with reporters.

Gore moved into the lead following last month's Democratic convention and had slowly expanded his advantage. As late as last week, Gore had led the race in most polls by between 3 and 8 points.

With the first of three presidential debates now nine days away, both candidates are seeking to go into that confrontation as the leader.

The latest polls did not reflect public reaction to the Clinton administration's decision last Friday to release a limited amount of oil from the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help consumers pay for heating oil this winter. Bush attacked the decision, which Gore had pushed hard for, as politically motivated.