CANDIDATES SPRINTING TO FINISH LINE DUKAKIS, BUSH COVERING FAMILIAR TERRITORY IN LAST-MINUTE BID FOR SUPPORT

Underdog Michael Dukakis, saying late polls are confirming the presidential campaign surge he claims, is "sprinting for the finish line" against George Bush as the leader maintains he "will not be outhustled at the end."

Both men are covering much of the same territory as they battle to the wire for last-minute support, with Dukakis moving Friday from New York to Kentucky to Illinois after a day in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut. Bush traveled to Connecticut and Michigan after a day in Ohio and Illinois.President Reagan, meanwhile, was bound for Illinois and New Jersey on behalf of Bush, urging voters to put their trust in the hands of his vice president.

The latest polls released Thursday included a California survey that showed Dukakis gaining slightly on Bush and a New York assessment that found him slipping a little, but the Massachusetts governor rejected all judgments showing him still far behind his Republican rival.

In fact, in Newark, N.J., he told supporters internal polling shows the race significantly tighter in their own state as well as in Texas and California. "It's out there," he declared at a hastily arranged airport rally. "The tide is moving for us."

Sen. Bill Bradley, D-N.J., stood beside him and proclaimed, "Democrats are coming home for Michael Dukakis," and his campaign chairman, Paul Brountas, denied that an upturn at this point would be too late for his candidate.

"No, absolutely not," Brountas told reporters. "This is the right dynamics in the last several days of the campaign."

Moving into Connecticut on a Naugatuck Valley political swing reminiscent of John Kennedy's final White House campaign stretch 28 years ago, Dukakis vowed to "surprise the pollsters and the pundits" come Election Day.

For months Dukakis has drawn parallels with Kennedy, who as a Massachusetts senator beat Republican Vice President Richard Nixon by a mere 112,000 votes.

"Remember 1960 and another son of Massachusetts who came to this valley!" he hoarsely urged an enthusiastic crowd of about 3,000 who repeated history by waiting for him in the cold on the same street outside Ansonia's City Hall.

Bush brushed aside such historical comparisons, again deriding the Democrat for claiming the liberal mantle of Kennedy and former Presidents Harry Truman and Franklin Roosevelt.

"I honestly believe my opponent's vision is too narrow to encompass the great names of the Democratic Party of the past," Bush told nearly 4,000 students at Bloom Township High School in Chicago's southwest suburbs.