Poll sees crushing Bush, Gore wins
In the Republican race, Bush led Arizona Sen. John McCain in seven of the eight states surveyed -- including California, New York and Ohio, the three biggest prizes next Tuesday.
The survey, conducted by Zogby International pollsters, also suggested that the battles for both the Republican and Democratic nominations may effectively end next Tuesday, setting the stage for a presidential election between Vice President Gore and Bush, the governor of Texas. Below's a summary by party. It has an overall margin of error of 5 percent.
The poll found McCain so far behind in five of the eight states there seemed virtually no hope of recovery.
Bush led McCain in California by 48-30 percent; in Georgia by 52-30 percent; in Ohio by 57-31 percent; in Missouri by 46-37 percent; in Maryland by 52-32 percent.
Bush had much narrower leads in Connecticut, 45-42 percent, and in New York, 44-41 percent.
Previous polls had shown McCain ahead in Connecticut and New York. Losses in those states would be a disaster for his campaign.
McCain led Bush in Massachusetts by 59-29 percent. That was his sole bright point.
Gore is widely expected to wrap up the Democratic presidential nomination by beating former Sen. Bill Bradley in the 16 states holding Democratic ballots.
The poll found Gore with what seemed to be insurmountable leads over Bradley of 19 points in New York, 35 points in California and 56 points in Ohio.
Under a complicated system in California, all candidates -- Democratic as well as Republican -- will appear on a single ballot but only specially coded Republican ballots count toward delegates. That means that McCain could conceivably beat Bush in the popular vote but lose all 162 Republican delegates -- about 15 percent of the total needed for the GOP nomination.
That would be embarrassing for Bush but would not hold up his march toward the nomination.
In fact, the poll showed Bush and Gore with 26 percent each in the open vote, McCain at 24 percent, Bradley at 9 percent, and 11 percent of the voters undecided.
If Bush can edge Gore in the popular ballot, it would give Republicans great hope they could win the powerhouse state in the November election for the first time since 1988 when Bush's father was the victor.
Twelve states are holding Republican primaries or caucuses on March 7 with 588 delegates to the Republican National Convention at stake. A total of 1,034 will be needed to win that party's presidential nomination.
After Bush won contests this week in Virginia, Washington and North Dakota, he took the lead in the delegate count by 161 to 103 for McCain. More importantly, he grabbed the momentum in advance of next Tuesday.
Bush and McCain held their final debate before the big vote in Los Angeles on Thursday with McCain participating from St. Louis by satellite.
The hour-long encounter featured some bad tempered clashes but Bush more than held his own.
McCain was asked about telephone calls made by his campaign to Catholic voters highlighting Bush's visit last month to Bob Jones University, a Christian fundamentalist institution in South Carolina which preaches an anti-Catholic theology.
"I did not call him an anti-Catholic bigot. I did not say anything except he was there and waited three weeks before he repudiated it," he said.
Bush quickly shot back: "If you don't think those phone calls called me an anti-Catholic bigot, then you weren't paying attention to what your campaign was putting out.
"The clear message was I was an anti-Catholic bigot. That's why people all over the country were wondering about my heart for a while. The good news is that America rejects that kind of politics," he said.
Reuters contributed to this story.