On the Democratic side, Vice President Al Gore has built on his national lead over Bill Bradley in the CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll, while the two competitors remain locked in a close race in New Hampshire, which holds the first primary on Feb. 1.

Gore led Bradley, a former New Jersey senator, 59 percent to 30 percent in the new national poll. Last month, Gore was ahead, 52 percent to 38 percent, in the same poll.

While a recent Newsweek poll showed Gore would fare better against Bush than Bradley, the CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll offered conflicting findings. The race would be very close between Bush and Bradley, 49 percent to 47 percent, among likely voters, while Gore trailed Bush among likely voters, 52 percent to 43 percent. Bush had a slight edge over both among registered voters.

The overall lead for Gore is reflected in several other recent national polls that show him with at least a 20-point lead over Bradley.

The tracking poll by the American Research Group suggests movement for Bush over the last month. A poll in late December from ARG had McCain leading Bush by 9 points.

"Basically, Bush advertised heavily over the Christmas holidays and McCain wasn't in New Hampshire during that time and Bush got the benefit of that," said American Research Group pollster Dick Bennett. "The real key is going to be what happens after McCain spends more time up here."

McCain campaign spokesman Howard Opinsky said: "What Dr. Bennett has found in the past is the more that voters see John McCain, the more they like him."

McCain was in New Hampshire most of last week. "We'll be there most of this week and most of the days between now and the primary," Opinsky said.

The tracking poll is a three-day average of nightly polls of about 200 people nightly. The error margin for the sample of 620 taken Sunday through Tuesday was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll of 1,633 adults taken Friday through Monday has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points and the sample of 814 likely voters had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Among the other findings of the national poll:

• 49 percent of likely voters favored Democrats and 45 percent chose Republicans when asked which party's candidate they would vote for in their congressional district. That difference was within the poll's error margin.

• President Clinton's approval rate is at 63 percent, up slightly from December.

• Just over half, 51 percent, approved of the way Congress is handling its job -- the first time in a year that Congress has had a majority in its corner.

• said they would be satisfied with a choice between Gore and Bush, compared with slightly more than half who said in January 1996 they would be satisfied with a choice between Clinton and Dole.

• A quarter of Americans said Gore's ties with Clinton made them view him less favorably, while 10 percent said they viewed Gore more favorably because of the link.

• Half said they want to see a continuation of Clinton's policies, while a third said they wanted more conservative policies and one out of 10 wanted more liberal policies.

• Three-fourths said they were better off now than eight years ago and more than eight out of 10 said they were satisfied with the state of the nation's economy.

• Three-fourths said they were dissatisfied with the state of the country's moral values.