WASHINGTON -- George W. Bush and John McCain are in very tight races in the New York primary and in the contest for the overall popular vote in California, according to polls released Friday.

In the waning days before Tuesday's crucial primaries, McCain leads in some Northeastern states, notably Massachusetts and Vermont, while Bush is ahead in several states in other regions of the country including Georgia, Maryland, Missouri and Ohio.

Bush has consistently held a 20-point lead among California Republicans, and the winner of the party vote in California will get the day's big prize -- the state's 162 GOP delegates. But the McCain campaign is hoping to beat Bush among all California voters to underscore his claim that he would be a stronger GOP candidate in November.

On Friday, a Marist poll and a Zogby-New York Post-WNWS poll showed McCain and Bush locked in a dead heat in New York where the Arizona senator hopes a win would keep his bid for the Republican nomination alive.

In California, a Zogby-Reuters-MSNBC tracking poll showed Democratic front-runner Al Gore, Bush and McCain all even in the open primary race. Gore was at 26 percent, Bush at 26 percent and McCain at 24 percent, while Democrat Bill Bradley was at 9 percent and Republican Alan Keyes was at 3 percent.

Gore led Bradley in New York by about 20 points in both polls. Gore also leads Bradley comfortably in other states that vote Tuesday.

The poll by Marist College's Institute for Public Opinion showed Bush with the support of 46 percent of the likely voters in Tuesday's New York GOP primary to 45 percent for McCain, a statistical tie. A Marist poll released earlier in the week gave McCain a narrow edge among likely primary voters. The Zogby poll had Bush at 44 percent among likely primary voters to 41 percent for McCain, also a statistical tie after taking into account the margin of potential sampling error.

McCain has more than a 30-point lead in Massachusetts and is well ahead in Vermont, two states with open primaries, in polls released this week. McCain usually gets heavy support among independents and Democrats when they are allowed to vote in open GOP primaries.

A Zogby tracking poll had Bush and McCain close in Connecticut, a state where only registered Republicans can vote in the GOP primary. Bush usually fares best with Republican voters.

Bush is ahead by 20 points in Georgia, Maryland and Ohio and by about half that margin in Missouri, according to Zogby tracking polls. Georgia, Missouri and Ohio are open primaries, while independents are allowed to vote in the GOP primary in Maryland.

Marist's telephone poll of 191 likely Republican primary voters and 244 likely Democratic primary voters in New York was conducted Tuesday and Wednesday. The margins of error were plus or minus 7 percentage points for the GOP likely voters and 6.5 percentage points for the Democratic likely voters Zogby's tracking poll sampled 431 likely Republican primary voters and 395 Democrats on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. The error margins were 5 percentage points for each sample.

The Zogby tracking polls in Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York and Ohio were averages of three one-night polls taken Feb. 29-March 2 and surveyed 350 to 450 likely voters for each primary. The margins of error range from 5 percentage points to 5.5 percentage points. California's poll had 800 interviews during the same period with a 3.5 percentage point margin of error.