CAMPAIGN ’88 : Pollsters Kept Busy

With the first major presidential contest less than four months away, pollsters have plenty to keep track of. Some recent findings:

--About half of Democratic voters have not yet decided whether to support any of the party’s six declared candidates, and a majority of all voters believe the Republicans have better candidates, according to a CBS News/New York Times telephone poll. But the survey of 1,326 adults interviewed Oct. 18-22 also indicated that Americans are at least as likely to vote for a Democrat as a Republican in the ’88 election.

-- The historically strong tie between black Americans and the Democratic Party is getting weaker, especially among young blacks, who have no direct link to the Democratic-led civil rights strides of the 1960s. A survey of 900 blacks--conducted in August by the Gallup organization and the Joint Center for Political Studies, a nonpartisan think tank specializing in black issues--found that although 77% of them identified with the Democratic Party, only 41% considered themselves strong Democrats, down from 49% and 54% in 1986. Among blacks ages 18 to 29, only 28% said they were strong Democrats.