Amazing Gore Poll - If Running He'd Be In Dead Heat With Bush

For the first time since the 2000 elections, a major poll shows the country split evenly between former Vice President Al Gore and President Bush. The same poll also shows that half the voters in America have not forgotten the controversy of the 2000 election.

The results of the Sept. 5-9 Zogby poll show Bush with less than majority support and only with the narrowest of margins over Al Gore, 48 percent to 46 percent -- a difference that's within the poll's margin of error (3.2 percent). Moreover, Gore leads Bush among independent voters by 47 percent to 43 percent.

"More than two and a half years after the 2000 election and we are back where we started," said pollster John Zogby. "The country was evenly divided then and it is still evenly divided."

In the match-up against Bush, Gore received 77 percent support from Democrats, 47 percent from independents, and 10 percent from Republicans.

Perhaps the most intriguing result of the poll was the almost even split on a question never asked of voters before. The poll asked respondents whether they agree or disagree that Gore would have been elected president had all the votes been counted in Florida in 2000. Almost half, 46 percent , agreed, and 48 percent disagreed (again, within the margin of error). A large majority of Democrats (70 percent) and a majority of independents (50 percent) believe Gore would have won had the Supreme Court not intervened.

Asked whether the country would have been better or worse off under a Gore administration, a plurality of respondents (37 percent) gave the nod to a hypothetical Gore presidency. Only 33 percent said the country would have been worse off, and 21 percent said there would have been no difference. Both Democrats (64 percent) and independents (36 percent) feel Gore's leadership would have been better for America.

Asked if they feel that Gore should run in 2004, a majority of Democrats in (52 percent) said yes.