New Poll Shows Big Lead For Clinton

WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, July 22) -- President Bill Clinton holds a 17-point lead over GOP rival Robert Dole in the presidential race, a new CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll shows. If Texas businessman Ross Perot runs as a Reform Party candidate, he would cut into Dole's and Clinton's support evenly, the poll found.

In a two-way-race, Clinton would defeat Dole 56-39 percent, according to the 866 registered voters interviewed between July 18-21. If Perot is thrown into the mix, he would pick up 12 percent, while support for Clinton (50 percent) and Dole (33 percent) would drop.

Former Colorado Governor Dick Lamm, who hopes to wrest the Reform Party nomination from Perot, would get six percent support in a three-way race with Clinton and Dole. Only 11 percent held a favorable view of Lamm, nicknamed "Governor Gloom" in the 1980s, while 22 percent had an unfavorable view of him. Some 67 percent of respondents were unfamiliar with him.

Clinton's favorability rating stands at 62 percent, with 35 percent holding an unfavorable view of him. Dole's favorability rating was 49 percent, down 6 points from June. His unfavorability rating was 44 percent, up 7 points. The good news for Dole concerns his age: only 31 percent thought Dole, who turns 73 today, is too old to be president; 66 percent said he isn't too old.

In other good news for the president, 41 percent of respondents trusted him to handle the economy. Some 30 percent preferred Dole, while Perot garnered 22 percent. Americans are also more optimistic about the economy's strength, with 43 percent calling economic conditions excellent or good, up from 30 percent who felt that way in May.

The survey, which sampled 1,010 adult Americans, had a margin of error between +/- three to five percent.

New Poll Shows Big Lead For Clinton

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