Poll: Gore Still Leads Bradley

Despite several weeks of bad news about his campaign, likely Democratic voters still favor Vice President Al Gore for their party's nomination, though the race has tightened slightly in the last month and narrowed considerably in the last few months.

Forty-six percent of Democratic primary voters favor Gore, and 33 percent favor former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley. Last month, Gore led Bradley, 50 percent to 32 percent.

PREFERENCE FOR DEMOCRATIC NOMINATION

Bradley does best in the Northeast and the West, and among college educated and higher income Democratic voters. Gore gets more support from women than from men, and has a three to one lead over Bradley among black Democrats.

When it comes to overall feelings about these two candidates, Gore is more popular with Democrats than Bradley is, while Bradley seems better liked among all potential voters. One advantage Bradley may have is that the majority of people have yet to form ANY opinion about him. Gore, while better known than Bradley, gets extremely negative ratings from Republicans. Consequently, more people hold nationwide unfavorable views of Gore than hold favorable ones.

OPINIONS OF THE DEMOCRATS - DEMOCRATIC VOTERS

OPINIONS OF THE DEMOCRATS - TOTAL PUBLIC

THE GENERAL ELECTION CAMPAIGN

In principle, voters are evenly divided in their choice for the 2000 election. Thirty-eight percent of registered voters say they would vote Republican if the 2000 presidential election were held now, and 36 percent would vote for the Democrat. The rest are undecided, or say it depends on the nominees. But in this poll, as in other national polls, Texas Governor George W. Bush maintains double-digit leads over both Gor and Bradley when candidate names are substituted for those party labels.

2000 PRESIDENTIAL VOTE PREFERENCE

There is a somewhat higher undecided percentage in the Bradley-Bush race than in the Gore-Bush contest, most likely reflecting the fact that Bradley is less well known than Gore. Only seven in ten of those who say they would vote for a Democrat in the generic question say they would support Gore or Bradley in a contest with Bush. On the other hand, Bush retains more than 90 percent of those who would vote for a Republican.

Gore's supporters for the nomination are somewhat less likely to say they would defect if Bradley became the nominee than vice versa. And at least for now, Bradley also does better with independent voters than does Gore.