Poll: Speech A Boost For Clinton

A poll released Wednesday suggests that President Clinton’s popularity was helped by his State of the Union speech and Republican Bob Dole’s presidential quest was hurt by his response to it.

Asked for whom they would be more likely to vote if the presidential election were held today, 52 percent of American adults chose Clinton and 42 percent favored Dole, according to the CNN/USA Today/ Gallup survey.

In a similar poll taken Jan. 12-15 - before Clinton’s Jan. 23 State of the Union address and Dole’s much-criticized response - Dole tallied 49 percent and Clinton 48 percent.

The new survey, conducted by telephone among 1,216 American adults from Friday through Monday, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

In another political poll, publisher Steve Forbes surged into the lead among Republican presidential candidates less than three weeks before the New Hampshire primary.

The poll, conducted by the Boston Globe and WBZ-TV, shows Forbes would receive 31 percent of the vote if the primary were held now, the Globe reported in today’s editions.

Dole, who has been the front-runner for the past year, received 22 percent in the latest poll, while political commentator Patrick Buchanan got 11 percent.