2 Polls Say Race Is Tied Again

The solid lead President Bush established in several polls after the Republican National Convention appeared to have faded Thursday, as two new national surveys showed his race against Sen. John F. Kerry again is a virtual tie.

The polls, by the Pew Research Center and Harris Interactive, are certain to buoy spirits within the Kerry campaign, which other Democrats have been criticizing for not responding effectively to GOP attacks.

The Pew Center poll had Bush and Kerry at 46% apiece among registered voters. The Harris poll gave Bush a statistically insignificant lead, 48% to 47%, among a pool of likely voters. The margin of error for the Pew Center poll is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; for the Harris poll, it is 3 percentage points.

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Center, said the shift was due in large part to a bloc of voters who were rethinking the race.

“Now we are in a period of changing minds,” he said.

Also, he said the scathing attacks aimed at Kerry during the GOP convention had begun to wear off and that the next big moment in the campaign would probably be the debates.

“Public discontent with Iraq and the economy has kept Kerry in the game,” he said.

After the Republican convention, Bush grabbed a lead ranging from 5 to 11 percentage points in national polls. Surveys also show Bush making gains in several battleground states, where each side thinks the election will be decided.

Bush on Thursday targeted one of those key states, rolling his campaign buses through Minnesota farmland.

“Isn’t it great to be a tossup state?” asked Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty as he introduced the president at a rally in St. Cloud, northwest of Minneapolis. “With your help, we can put Minnesota in the Republican column for the first time in 32 years.”

Despite Minnesota’s history in presidential races, Republicans have fared well in races here in recent years. Two state polls were published this week, one of them showing Bush ahead by 2 percentage points, the other giving Kerry a 9-point lead. Republicans and Democrats disagreed over which poll was more accurate, but both agree the state is up for grabs.

“There’s no doubt in my mind, with your help, we will carry the great state of Minnesota,” Bush told supporters at a rally in Rochester.

Bush’s bus tour targeted three counties in rural and suburban Minnesota that voted Republican in 2000. In addition to the rallies in St. Cloud and Rochester, the president discussed healthcare at a sports training center in Blaine.

Bush’s foray into Minnesota -- his fifth this year -- was likely to force Kerry to spend time and money protecting his support here.

Bush highlighted healthcare at each stop, an issue in which Kerry has received higher marks in national polls. The president accused Kerry of wanting to put government in charge of healthcare. “When it comes to healthcare, my opponent wants to dictate. I want you to decide,” Bush said in Rochester, home of the renowned Mayo Clinic.

The president also warned against importing drugs from Canada -- a proposal popular with seniors near the Canadian border -- saying it could pose safety threats.

“I don’t want people bringing in drugs that will hurt our seniors. And neither do you,” Bush said during his stop in Blaine. “I know it sounds attractive to some, importation of drugs. And it may work. But, sure enough, if we’re not careful, drugs manufactured in the Third World over which we have no control could use Canada as a way to get into this state. And then we got a problem, a safety problem.”

While Bush was campaigning in Minnesota, the Democratic National Committee released a new campaign ad questioning Bush’s record on the war in Iraq and the economy. The ad shows a clip of Bush speaking more than a year ago on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and declaring that major fighting in Iraq was over. In the background is the “Mission Accomplished” banner. The ad’s narrator asks: “How can you solve problems when you won’t even admit they’re there?”

The Kerry campaign also rolled out an ad challenging Bush’s depiction of the Democrats’ healthcare plan as government-controlled. And the pro-Kerry MoveOn PAC released a commercial calling for the election of a new president to rescue the U.S. from the “quagmire” in Iraq. The ad shows a soldier sinking into the desert sand, struggling to hold a rifle above his head.

The ad caused former Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas, the GOP’s 1996 presidential nominee and head of the Bush campaign’s veterans coalition, to call for the ad’s removal because it depicted “an American soldier in effect surrendering in the battle against the terrorists.”