The national poll showed Bush and Gore comfortably ahead in the Republican and Democratic races for the presidential nomination.

In a head-to-head matchup, Bush had a slight edge over Gore, 50 percent to 45 percent among registered voters. That's compared with 56 percent for Bush and 39 percent for Gore in an early January Time-CNN poll.

Bush led Bradley in a head-to-head matchup, 51 percent to 42 percent, compared with a 55-39 lead earlier this month.

"What you really have is Democrats supporting Gore more than they have in the past," said Hal Quinley, executive vice president of Yankelovich Partners of Norwalk, Conn. "Gore's the closest he's been in a while."

Quinley said Gore got the support of three-fourths of Democrats against Bush instead of two-thirds in this poll and got a slight improvement among independents, with four out of 10 supporting him.

Bush is at about 50 percent in most polls against the Democrats, while their levels of support differ, according to the poll. In a Fox News poll, Gore was behind by 15 points, while in a recent Newsweek poll he was down by 7 points.

Bush and Bradley were very close in a recent CNN-USA-Today poll that showed Bush with 49 percent and Bradley with 47 percent, a margin too close to call.

About half of those questioned said they know enough about Bush to decide whether he would make a good president and half said they need to know more. Two-thirds said they know enough about Gore.

The Time-CNN poll of 1,564 people was taken Wednesday and Thursday and has an error margin of plus or minus 2.5 percent, with a 3 percentage point error margin for the 1,276 registered voters.