ELECTION SECTION

• Election 2004 page

Bush has the support of 54 percent of likely voters, compared with 43 percent for Kerry and 2 percent for Ralph Nader, according to the University of Cincinnati's Ohio Poll.

One percent is undecided.

The poll of 456 likely voters was taken Sept. 12-18. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.6 percentage points, which means Bush's lead over Kerry could be as low as almost two or as high as 20.

"You may see a few smiles around headquarters, but it won't make any difference in strategy," said Jo Ann Davidson, former Ohio House of Representatives speaker.

She is chairwoman of the Bush campaigns in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Indiana.

Bush campaign volunteers plan "Super Saturday" this weekend when they will register new voters - on top of the 174,600 they've registered already, Davidson said.

"Ohio still retains its sort of ground zero status as far as the national election is concerned," Davidson said. "We know these next six weeks are going to be a hectic six weeks."

Kerry campaign officials said the next six weeks will bring only more door-knocking from volunteers and more visits from Kerry himself.

"I tell my friends: Keep your kitchen clean because he's liable to knock on the door for dinner, he's here's so much," Batavia lawyer and Kerry convention delegate Priscilla O'Donnell said.

Despite the numbers, neither campaign is showing any letup in their emphasis on Ohio.

Vice President Dick Cheney was in Wauseon, near Toledo, on Tuesday: "The signs are good here in Ohio," he told the crowd; former president George H.W. Bush will lead a rally in Columbus today, and first lady Laura Bush stops at the Hyde Park home of Bob and Brynne Coletti for a $5,000-a-person fund-raiser Thursday night.

President Bush is expected to lead a 20,000-person rally at the former Voice of America site Monday in West Chester Township, according to Butler County Republican chairman Carlos Todd.

Kerry's vice-presidential running mate, John Edwards, was in Cincinnati on Monday and Cleveland on Tuesday. Edwards' wife, Elizabeth, hits Youngstown and Canton today. Kerry supporters - from actress Valerie Harper to Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack - also are campaigning this week in Ohio.

Tuesday, one of the Kerry campaign's high-profile surrogates - Max Cleland of Georgia, Kerry's former Senate colleague who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam - came to Cincinnati to speak at an International Association of Machinists campaign rally.

He also met with a group of five women who have sons and husbands serving in Iraq. The group, funded by the Democratic National Committee and called "Military Moms on a Mission,'' has been traveling in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

"Our message is that you don't have to support Bush to support the troops on the ground,'' said Maura Satchell of Smyrna, Tenn., whose Marine son served in Iraq last year. "Of course, we support our sons and their comrades. What we don't support is a president who lied to get us in this and has turned it into a complete mess.''

While the surrogates were stumping in Cincinnati, the Kerry campaign organization in Ohio was downplaying the Ohio Poll.

"We think the race is closer than that," Kerry's Ohio spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said. "We're going to keep fighting it out."

Said O'Donnell: "These polls are ridiculous. I'm in a county that's very Republican. I see Kerry signs everywhere."

Bill Burga, head of the state AFL-CIO, added: "I just don't trust the polling this year."

Even though both campaigns have been running full throttle in Ohio since March, pollster Eric Rademacher said it still was too early to draw any conclusions.

A September 2000 poll showed Bush leading Al Gore by 47 percent to 43 percent. That actually was fairly accurate: Bush ended up winning Ohio by 3.5 percentage points.

"In the next six weeks, both candidates will ramp up their campaigns in Ohio. I don't think any polls will change that," Rademacher said.

The Ohio Poll is the latest poll this month to show Bush with a significant lead following the Republican National Convention.

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll released Sept. 8 showed Bush leading by 8 percentage points; a Strategic Vision poll released Sept. 13 showed Bush up by 12; and a Mason-Dixon poll this past weekend for the Cleveland Plain Dealer showed Bush up by 8.

An Ohio Poll taken after the Democratic National Convention showed Kerry with a two-point lead among likely voters, which amounted to a statistical dead-heat. Rademacher said Kerry had suffered some defections to Ralph Nader. Ohio is still deciding whether Nader will appear on the ballot.

Other poll highlights:

• Men prefer Bush. Among white men, Bush led Kerry 65 percent to 31 percent.

• The youngest voters, 18- to 29-year olds, backed Kerry 64 percent to 29 percent. But in every other age group, Bush was up by at least 9 percentage points.

• Suburbs and rural areas are Bush country. Kerry leads in urban counties, 51 percent to 44 percent.

Enquirer reporter Howard Wilkinson contributed. E-mail cweiser@gannett.com