A poll from the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute found the first lady's support slipping in traditionally more conservative upstate New York and in the New York City suburbs.

Given the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points, the two were statistically tied with Clinton at 47 percent and the congressman from Long Island at 44 percent. An Oct. 18 Quinnipiac poll had Clinton leading, 50 percent to 43 percent.

"The movement was away from Mrs. Clinton to undecided," said Maurice Carroll, director of the polling institute based in Hamden, Conn.

"The good news for Lazio is that Clinton is losing ground. The bad news for Lazio is that he's barely gaining," he said.

The New York Post's daily tracking poll, conducted by Zogby International, showed Lazio narrowly leading, 48 percent to 43 percent. The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points. A Zogby poll released Oct. 20 had Lazio at 43 percent and Clinton at 42 percent.

Quinnipiac's telephone poll of 1,009 likely voters was conducted Oct. 24-30. Zogby's telephone poll of 694 likely voters was conducted Saturday through Monday.

The new Quinnipiac poll showed Lazio's support among upstate voters remaining at 49 percent, but Clinton's slipped to 38 percent, down from 44 percent in the Oct. 18 poll. In the suburbs surrounding New York City, the new poll had Lazio leading, 52 percent to 41 percent, compared to a margin of 48-46 in the Oct. 18 poll. Clinton widened her lead in heavily Democratic New York City, 65 percent to 29 percent, up from 61 percent to 31 percent in the Oct. 18 survey.

The poll reports came as Long Island's Newsday newspaper endorsed Lazio.

The paper said Clinton "is seldom innovative and too often falls back on traditional Democratic prescriptions of spending more or coming up with another government program" while Lazio is "a skilled, tested legislative technician and a native son who can bring to the Senate a gut feel for New York that his opponent, by accident of birth, simply cannot match."