FARGO - North Dakotans favor President Bush over Democratic challenger John Kerry by a margin of 55 percent to 35 percent, a new poll says.

The poll conducted for the Forum and WDAY-TV found nearly 9 percent were undecided and less than 1 percent supported Ralph Nader.

The telephone poll was conducted this week of 623 likely North Dakota voters. It has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

North Dakotans last voted for a Democratic president 40 years ago. Bush got 61 percent of the votes in the state in 2000.

Nationwide, an Associated Press poll finds the two presidential candidates locked in a tie. The Associated Press-Ipsos poll is based on telephone interviews with 1,540 adults, including 1,330 registered voters and 976 likely voters, from all states except Alaska and Hawaii, conducted Oct. 18-20.

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. It said the Public Affairs Institute has 15 years of political polling experience.

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.