A new poll in the US shows President George W Bush with an 11 point lead over his Democratic rival Senator John Kerry.
A Newsweekpoll released yesterday showed the Bush/Cheney ticket beating Kerry/Edwards by 52 per cent to 41 per cent in a three-way race with independent candidate Mr Ralph Nader - a 13-point rise for Mr Bush since mid-August.
He had an identical lead in a Timemagazine poll on Friday following months of polls that showed him and Mr Kerry running neck and neck.
On the campaign trail in the pivotal electoral state of Ohio, Mr Bush said the hostage siege in Beslan in which over 300 people, almost half of them children, were killed, was a "grim reminder of the nature of the terrorists we face."
"That is why this country must be strong and diligent and never yielding. We must bring them to justice," he told a rally at a school in Broadview Heights, Ohio.
Meanwhile Mr Kerry criticized the president for burying a record jump in Medicare premiums in a pre-holiday announcement that came during a rush of news at home and abroad.
Mr Kerry, also campaigning in Ohio, where Bush won narrowly in 2000, emphasized issues like the economy and health care where the president is seen as vulnerable.
The Massachusetts senator questioned the timing of the Bush administration's announcement late on Friday - before the Labor Day holiday weekend - that older Americans must pay 17 per cent more next year for their government-run health insurance.