Kerry leads Bush in 2 polls

WASHINGTON — Democratic front-runner John Kerry is leading President Bush in head-to-head matchups in two polls released Monday.

The Massachusetts senator was leading Bush 54-46 in a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll and 51-43 in a national poll by the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. Both polls were taken over the weekend.

A Newsweek poll released over the weekend showed Kerry at 48 percent and Bush at 46 percent.

All three polls showed Bush with a job approval rating in the high 40s — 49 percent in the Newsweek and Gallup polls and 48 percent in the Quinnipiac poll, with almost as many disapproving.

That is a sharp drop from Bush's strong standing with the public after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. His job approval rating was near 90 percent after the terrorist attacks and stayed at historically high levels for months after that. Bush's job approval had spiked into the high 50s after the capture of Saddam Hussein in mid-December.

The Quinnipiac poll of 1,219 registered voters was taken Jan. 28-31. The CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll of 1,001 adults, including 891 registered voters, was taken Jan. 29-31. The Newsweek poll of 1,259 adults was taken Jan. 29-30. All three polls had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.