THE Republican presidential candidate, Mr Bob Dole, got a boost from his party's convention and has sliced into President Clinton's still solid lead, a New York Times/CBS News poll reported yesterday.
But the survey showed that many voters are still sceptical about Mr Dole's tax cut proposal and are split in their opinion about the former Kansas senator.
The poll showed that 50 per cent of registered voters surveyed would support Mr Clinton and the Vice President Mr Al Gore, if the election was held today, white 39 per cent backed Mr Dole and his running mate, Mr Jack Kemp.
The 11 point gap represents a gain of 5 percentage points for Mr Dole and a loss of six for Mr Clinton, compared with a Times/CBS News poll taken shortly before last week's Republican convention.
A separate CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll put Mrs Clinton ahead 48 per cent to Mr Dole's 41 per cent. The poll said Mr Dole picked up 11 points since the Republican convention, largely due to the selection of Mr Kemp as his running mate.
In a three way race, 49 per cent of voters in the Times/CBS poll said they would back Mr Clinton, 37 per cent would support Mr Dole and 8 per, cent said they would vote for Mr Ross" Perot, the billionaire candidate of the Reform Party.
On the Dole proposal for a 15 per cent tax cut along with a balanced budget, 32 per cent of those surveyed said they thought taxes would go up if he were elected in November. Some 24 per cent said taxes would decrease and 40 per cent said they would stay the same.
"Sixty three per cent of respondents said Mr Dole had not explained his economic plan adequately while 27 per cent said he had.
Twenty nine per cent of voters had a favourable opinion of Mr Dole, 32 per cent did not. Some 54 per cent said he had made it clear what he wanted to do as president, 40 per cent said he had not.
The poll of 1,138 adults was conducted from last Friday through Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 per cent. The CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll was based on interviews with 1,006 registered voters from Friday through Sunday and also has a margin of error of 3 per cent.
Meanwhile, the consumer rights crusader, Mr Ralph Nader, was nominated on Monday as the Green Party's presidential candidate at the party's conference at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Mr Nader came to prominence 30 years ago for attacking car safety standards. He runs the Washington based Centre for the Study of Responsive Law.
"He's currently on 12 (state) ballots and we expect to have him on 30," said Mr Michael Feinstein, a Green Party spokesman. He expects another 15 states to make Mr Nader a write in candidate for the November 5th election.
Mr Nader's previous bid for the presidency came in 1992 when he ran as an independent in the New Hampshire primary.
"The pressure to exploit the consumers and workers continues," he told delegates, urging greater consumer control of utilities, health insurance and television programming. "We're the landlords of the public airwaves," he said, denouncing television as an "electronic molester".
Responding to criticism that he was stealing the Democratic Party's votes, he said: "We're sick of being told we have to chose between the bad and the worse."