Campaign ’96 / POLL WATCH : Who’s Ahead? And by How Much?

THE POLLS: On the eve of the Republican candidate debate Thursday night, five separate polls made New Hampshire one of the most heavily surveyed and, as a result, one of the most confusing territories in the country. The polls do have some common points. Sen. Bob dole and Patrick J. Buchanan appeared to be vying for the lead while Steve Forbes and Lamar Alexander, the former governor of Tennessee, were battling for third place. The trend lines how Buchanan and Alexander moving up, Dole holding steady and Forbes declining. So why the differences? First, these polls all attempt to look at “likely” voters in Tuesday’s primary, and each pollster asks a different set of questions to decide who really is likely to vote, Second, some pollsters ask questions designed to push uncommitted people into saying which way they lean. Others do not. As a result, some polls have much higher percentages of undecided voters than others. Finally, every poll has a built-in margin of error based on the size of the sample. In each of these polls, all of which were conducted between Monday and Wednesday, the margin is between 4 and 5 percentage points either way.

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Bob Dole Pat Buchanan Steve Forbes BOSTON GLOBE/WBZ 27% 17% 16% N.Y. POST/WNYW 21% 22% 15% ABC 27% 28% 15% CNN/USA TODAY/GALLUP 32% 25% 14% BOSTON HERALD/WCVB 23% 22% 13%

Lamar Alexander BOSTON GLOBE/WBZ 12% N.Y. POST/WNYW 15% ABC 12% CNN/USA TODAY/GALLUP 14% BOSTON HERALD/WCVB 19%

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