Dole Surges, Clinton Slides In New Poll

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, June 14) -- In the past month, President Bill Clinton's double-digit lead over Republican Bob Dole has evaporated, according to a new CNN/TIME Poll.

Clinton's lead has dropped from 22 points in mid-May to just six points today. If the election were held now, 49 percent of Americans would choose Clinton and 43 percent Dole, according to the survey.

Dole, campaigning in the south, was cautiously encouraged by a sign the presidential race is tightening. "Polls are polls, but this is better than I've seen," he told Associated Press. "It means, I assume, we got a bump out of leaving the Senate, but you can only do that once."

The numbers are based on interviews with 1,004 Americans, including 807 registered voters, on Wednesday and Thursday. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.5 percentage points.

The president's six-point lead contrasts sharply with results just a month ago, when Democrats were chortling over Clinton's 56-34 percent margin over his Republican rival.

Analysts say several factors appear to have contributed to Clinton's 16-point drop. Clinton's job approval rating has dropped six points in the past month, from 56 percent to 50 percent, and he now has a higher unfavorable rating than Dole.

Americans also are deeply skeptical of the president's explanations regarding two controversies -- Whitewater and the White House's possession of sensitive FBI files, some on leading Republicans.

On the FBI files, 57 percent of people surveyed say they think it was a deliberate attempt to gain confidential information, while only 31 percent say it was not. Most people do not believe Clinton's explanation that it was a bureaucratic snafu and nothing was done with the information.

And on Whitewater, 49 percent think the president lied and 45 percent think he did something illegal.

On the question of trust, 37 percent said they thought Clinton was a leader they could trust, while 61 percent said they had doubts and reservations about him. For Dole, 35 percent said he was someone they could trust and 54 percent said they had doubts and reservations.

If Clinton's popularity is fading, Dole's is on an upswing. The CNN/TIME survey was the first since the veteran Kansas legislator delivered his farewell speech in the Senate earlier this week, and it could be a temporary bounce. Other surveys suggest Clinton maintains a 12- to 18-point lead, and a new round of polling next week could provide evidence whether the race has tightened permanently or temporarily.

The CNN/TIME Poll suggests Dole also may have gained some ground as a result of his stance on abortion. His firm support for "declaration of tolerance" in the GOP platform as well as a plank calling for a constitutional amendment to ban all abortions is popular with the Republican rank-and-file.

A full 68 percent of Republicans nationwide say the platform should include such a declaration of tolerance if the platform also calls for an abortion ban. Only 23 percent say that the platform should support an abortion amendment without any language tolerating different views on abortion.

Dole's abortion stand may have also helped himself with women, who lead the list of voters who have switched to Dole in the last month. Dole gained 16 points among 18- to 29-year-old women since May, and 23 points among low-income women who never went to college.

The poll wasn't all bad news for Clinton. A full 62 percent of those surveyed said they thought things were going very well or fairly well in the country, the highest figure since April 1990.

And 61 percent said economic conditions in the contry are very good or fairly good, compared to 38 percent who described conditions as poor or very poor.

Dole Surges, Clinton Slides In New Poll

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