ASHINGTON - Seeking to rebut any suggestion that his candidacy is in trouble, Vice President Al Gore yesterday dismissed the implications of a pre-primary poll in New Hampshire showing he is in a statistical tie with Bill Bradley. Aides insisted that Gore is ''very pleased'' with the progress of his presidential campaign.
But aides to Bradley seized upon the Boston Globe/WBZ-TV poll of likely primary voters as evidence that their candidate's unconventional summerlong effort to contact tens of thousands of New Hampshire Democrats and independents has succeeded dramatically. The former New Jersey senator plans to formally kick off his presidential campaign on Wednesday from his hometown of Crystal City, Mo.
''A lot of the `wise guys' said it is too early for that, but I just think they are dead wrong and I think the voters in New Hampshire are paying a lot of attention,'' said Mark Longabaugh, Bradley's New Hampshire campaign director.
In the past two and a half months, Longabaugh said, Bradley supporters in New Hampshire have distributed 100,000 leaflets, knocked on 35,000 doors, and spoken to 10,000 people, with thousands of possible supporters invited by telephone to attend town meetings with the candidate. Often, candidates wait until the fall to launch such an intensive effort to identify possible supporters.
The poll showed Gore leading Bradley 40 percent to 36 percent, with a margin of error of 5 percentage points. The survey also showed Texas Governor George W. Bush maintaining a wide lead over his GOP rivals. The poll, conducted Aug. 27 to 31, surveyed 400 likely Democratic voters and 400 likely Republican voters.
Bradley, speaking to reporters in Point Pleasant, N.J., said, ''I was pleased by the poll, but it was only a snapshot in time. We are building in New Hampshire and over time we hope we will be stronger and stronger.''
Gore's spokesman said the vice president is not concerned about the results. ''We are very pleased with where we are in New Hampshire,'' said a Gore spokesman, Chris Lehane, who was traveling with Gore at a Detroit campaign stop yesterday. ''We are engaged in a dialogue with the New Hampshire people on the type of change that will work for the working families. We will continue to focus on issues important to them.''
As for the closeness of the poll, Lehane said, ''Various polls in New Hampshire have shown the vice president with a very substantial lead. We all know that these numbers will probably tighten, but the vice president, from what we have seen, remains very well positioned with both primary voters and general-election voters.''
One Gore aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the campaign had been surprised at the closeness of the poll, asserting that Gore's just-completed internal polling shows that the vice president maintains a double-digit lead in New Hampshire. Campaign aides said they have put an extraordinary focus on the Granite State, with Gore's next visit scheduled Friday. Bradley next visits the state in mid-September.
For months, Bradley's campaign has had a chicken-and-egg problem: Many potential supporters tell the campaign they want to back the former senator but they want assurance that he has a realistic chance of winning the nomination.
As a result, Bradley has embarked on a two-part strategy to show that he has a chance. First, the former National Basketball Association star surprised the Democratic establishment with his fund-raising capabilities, proving that he has enough support to come up with the $25 million that experts say is needed to run a credible primary campaign. Second, Bradley has focused heavily on the first-caucus state of Iowa and the first-primary state of New Hampshire, believing that a strong showing in those states will convince possible supporters elsewhere that he can win.
The poll showed that Bradley appears to be benefiting from a desire among New Hampshire Democrats for a political change. While New Hampshire is enjoying a 2.5 percent unemployment rate, the poll found only 21 percent of Democrats saying they want to stay the course and keep current government officials, while 39 percent said it was time for a change. The poll found that Bradley was especially strong among independents, leading Gore 51 to 31 percent. New Hampshire allows independents to switch their affiliation at the polling place during primaries, making them an important target.
New Hampshire has a well-established tradition of using its influence as the first-primary state to send a message to the political establishment. In 1984, Gary Hart upset former vice president Walter F. Mondale to win the Granite State contest. Mondale, who questioned Hart's lack of specifics by asking ''Where's the beef?'', went on to win the nomination but lost the election to President Reagan.
Bradley hopes to avoid such a challenge by outlining a series of specific policies throughout the fall. Meanwhile, campaign aides yesterday were exuberant that months of hard work in New Hampshire had produced a payoff in the poll results.
''We had to convince people we were going to work extremely hard,'' Bradley spokesman Eric Hauser said. ''We knew we had to start early. We always have reservations about the significance of polls, but this is a good validation of the inroads we think we are making.''
