CRAWFORD, United States (AFP) - Democratic White House hopeful John Kerry trailed behind US President George W. Bush in the latest polls, raising the stakes for their first debate two days before that face-to-face confrontation.
With the candidates preparing out of sight for their clash in Florida on Thursday, their campaigns waged an increasingly nasty war of words and worked to set the stage for claiming victory in the debate.
Two national polls found Bush's lead over Kerry had shrunk slightly from early September but that he was still up 51-44 percent in a Washington Post/ABC News study out Tuesday and 52-44 in a USA Today/CNN/Gallup survey out Monday.
A poll by the Pew Research Center for People and the Press indicated Bush had pulled further away from Kerry, drawing support from 48 percent of likely voters compared to 40 percent for the Massachusetts senator.
A previous survey by the same group had the two candidates in a dead heat at 46 percent each.
"The polls are looking good," Bush confidante and senior adviser Karen Hughes told Fox News Channel, while the president prepared for the debate at his beloved 1,600-acre (650-hectare) Texas ranch.
"On the major issues of this campaign, from the economy to the war against terror to Iraq, that president Bush is gaining the confidence of the American people, that he is clearly leading his opponent," she said.
Bush aides on Tuesday pursued their efforts to paint Kerry as a formidable foe with a lifetime of experience sparring with political opponents, while twisting his position on the war in Iraq to undermine him on national security -- the focus of Thursday's exchange in Coral Gables, Florida.
Hughes, in an interview on NBC television, quoted Kerry's charge that the military campaign to oust Saddam Hussein was a "profound diversion" from the hunt for Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.
"You can only conclude from that, I would think, that if he were elected president he would bring our troops home immediately without working for victory, and we have to defeat the terrorists there," she said.
In fact, Kerry has explicitly not favored any immediate withdrawal, saying instead that he hopes to start drawing down US forces in Iraq by mid-2005 but tying any such reduction to successes in stabilizing the war-torn country.
Even so, the Bush camp's relentless attacks, mostly focused on tarring Kerry as fickle on national security, appear to be damaging the Democrat's standing, according to the Washington Post/ABC News poll.
Fifty-six percent of respondents said Kerry does not have a clear plan for dealing with Iraq, and 55 percent said he does not have a clear plan for battling terrorism, arguably the November 2 election's dominant issue.
The poll, which had an error margin of plus or minus three percentage points, also found that 52 percent of respondents approved of the way Bush was doing his job. The 50 percent mark is considered a tipping point for reelection.
Kerry's situation raises the stakes for him in the first debate: It will be his first chance to go toe-to-toe with Bush and it will likely be the largest audience yet for his message that the president has botched Iraq.
Aides from both sides have been engaging in the time-honored US political tradition of lowering expectations for their candidate, aware that the US media frequently grade the debates on who did better or worse than expected rather than on who made the better argument.
"Senator Kerry has spent a lifetime preparing for this debate. He really has the demeanor of a prosecutor -- he relentlessly attacks,' Hughes told Fox News.
Bush on Tuesday became the target of a group of US scientists including 10 Nobel laureates, who are trying to convince voters that his administration has abused science. Bush also lost the support of his hometown newspaper: the Lone Star Iconoclast of Crawford, Texas, endorsed Kerry.
On Wednesday, Bush will visit Florida, hit by four hurricanes over the past six weeks, to survey disaster-relief efforts in that key battleground state.