FARGO - Sen. Byron Dorgan and Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., have comfortable leads over their election opponents, Republican Mike Liffrig and Duane Sand, a new poll says.

The poll conducted for the Forum and WDAY TV found 71 percent of 623 likely North Dakota voters said they would vote for Dorgan and 20 percent said they would vote for Liffrig. Eight percent were undecided.

Pomeroy was leading Sand, 61 percent to 31 percent, with 8 percent undecided, the poll found.

The telephone poll of 623 likely voters was conducted last week by the Public Affairs Institute at Minnesota State University, Moorhead. It has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

The Forum and WDAY-TV hired the Public Affairs Institute at Minnesota State University, Moorhead to conduct the poll of North Dakotans likely to vote in the Nov. 2 election.

The Forum said the principal investigators of the latest poll were MSUM political science professors James Danielson and Philip Baumann, co-directors of the institute since 1989.

Danielson, a Moorhead city councilman, has contributed to Democratic Party causes. He declined to cite specifics about his political contributions, saying they were a private matter, and said he conducted the poll as a professional. Figures from the Center for Responsive Politics, show he donated $250 to the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party on Oct. 30, 2003. Baumann said he has not contributed to any political campaigns in North Dakota.