Mexico's Pena Nieto with wide lead in new election poll

MEXICO CITY | Mon Jun 4, 2012 5:21am EDT

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Longstanding front-runner Enrique Pena Nieto still holds a big lead in the run-up to Mexico's July 1 presidential election, despite rising support for leftist rival Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a poll showed on Monday.

The latest voter survey by polling firm Buendia & Laredo for newspaper El Universal showed Pena Nieto, of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), dipping 4.1 percentage points to 37.8 percent from a previous poll published on May 14.

That kept him nearly 14 points ahead of 2006 runner-up Lopez Obrador, whose team received a boost on Thursday when a separate poll put him just four points behind Pena Nieto. Lopez Obrador rose 3.0 points to 23.9 percent, the latest poll showed.

Josefina Vazquez Mota, candidate of the ruling National Action Party (PAN), trailed in third place with 22.4 percent, also up 3.0 points from the previous survey.

The voter survey was conducted between May 24 and May 28 and surveyed 1,000 eligible voters. It had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, the newspaper said.

(Reporting by David Alire Garcia)

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