Clinton Leads in Latest Polls

Gov. Bill Clinton's lead in the national polls opened up a notch before election day, and he led President Bush by eight points in the survey that had shown a dead heat last week.

Gallup's daily tracking poll for CNN and USA Today had Governor Clinton at 44 percent, Bush at 36 percent, and Ross Perot at 14 percent among 1,562 likely voters interviewed in polls Saturday and Sunday. Six percent were undecided. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Clinton lead by six points in a Harris Poll taken Friday night through Sunday night. The poll of 1,975 voters showed Clinton with 43 percent, Bush with 37 percent, Perot with 16 percent, and 1 percent for others.

ABC News said the average from its tracking polls Thursday through Saturday was Clinton 42 percent, Bush 37 percent, and Perot 17 percent, based on 1,369 likely voters.

Clinton would still have a lead in the latest Gallup poll even if the margin of error, three percentage points, were taken away from him and given to Bush.

By the same reckoning, Clinton's lead in the ABC and Harris polls was within those polls' margin of error of 3 to 2.5 percentage points respectively. Bush was also at a disadvantage in a survey of must-win states conducted by the Associated Press.