Issues — not personality or party affiliation — are driving Ohio voters to either George W. Bush and Al Gore in this election, according to the University of Cincinnati's Ohio Poll.

        “These candidates have had really gotten their messages on issues out to the voters in Ohio,” said Eric Rademacher, director of UC's Institute for Policy Research, which conducts the Ohio Poll.

        The Ohio Poll conducted Oct. 18-25 among 666 likely voters showed Mr. Bush, the Republican governor of Texas, with an 8 percentage-point lead over Vice President Al Gore among Ohio voters, with only 2 percent still undecided. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

        Friday, the Ohio Poll released results from the survey on the issues that are driving Ohio voters as they prepare to go the polls Tuesday.

        The Ohio Poll found that those who said they plan to vote for Mr. Bush were more likely than Gore supporters to cite personality and character evaluations as the most important reason for their decisions.

        Nearly half of the Bush supporters — 48 percent - said they will vote for him because of the positions on issues he has taken in the course of the campaign, but an additional 23 percent cited personality and character issues as driving their votes. “Honesty” was cited by 12 percent of the Bush supporters as their most important reason.

        Relatively few of the Bush supporters - only 7 percent - said they are supporting him out of Republican party loyalty, and only 7 percent cited “need for a change” as their principal reason.

        Party loyalty wasn't much of a factor in Mr. Gore's Ohio support, either, according to the Ohio Poll.

        Only 15 percent said they were supporting the Democrat out of party loyalty. Another 47 percent said they are supporting Mr. Gore primarily because of his posi tion on issues.

        Education (11 percent) and the economy (10 percent) were cited most frequently by Gore supporters.

        Positive feelings about Mr. Gore's personality and character or negative ones about Mr. Bush were cited by only 8 percent of the Gore supporters.

        Ohio's electoral votes went to Bill Clinton in the past two presi dential elections. Mr. Rademacher said that in both elections, feelings about the major party candidates - both negative and positive - held more sway with Ohio voters than they seem to be in this election.

        “In those elections, we were more likely to hear people talking about liking or not liking the candidates based on their personal qualities,” Mr. Rademacher said.

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