With two days to go before Super Tuesday's multistate nominating contests, candidates for both parties campaigned furiously on Sunday, trying to seize voters' support in the hours before the country's attention shifted to the Super Bowl.
A variety of weekend polls showed Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York was locked in a tight race with Senator Barack Obama of Illinois for the Democratic nomination. A CBS News poll released Sunday evening showed Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama each had the support of 41 percent of the 491 Democratic primary voters it surveyed.
In contrast, Senator John McCain appeared to be heading into Tuesday's Republican contests with a clear lead over his chief rival, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts. The CBS News poll showed Mr. McCain gaining the support of 46 percent of the 325 Republican primary voters it surveyed, compared with 23 percent for Mr. Romney.
The polls also showed that significant numbers of voters have simply not yet decided who they are going to vote for, or if they have decided, are not fully committed to their decisions. About four in 10 Democratic voters and more than half of the Republican said they still could change their minds before Tuesday's contests, the CBS News poll said. Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney both came out swinging on Sunday. At a campaign stop in Wilmington, Del., Mr. Obama criticized both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain and tried to link his opponents to the policies of the Bush administration, particularly the war in Iraq, which Mrs. Clinton initially supported.
"I can offer and clean break from the failed policies of George W. Bush," Mr. Obama said. "I won't have to explain my votes in the past."
At a campaign rally outside Chicago, Mr. Romney, who has repeatedly claimed that Mr. McCain is out of step with conservative Republicans, also tried to link the Arizona Republican with Mrs. Clinton.
"There's a battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party," Mr. Romney said. "Which way are we going to go? Are we going to take a sharp left turn in our party, get as close as we can to Hillary Clinton, without being Hillary Clinton?"
Still, Mr. McCain appears to be picking up significant support from Republicans after relied on independents to carry him to victory in some early primaries. An ABC News/Washington Post survey showed that his support among self-identified Republicans was up nearly fourfold since December.
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