By CHUCK RAASCH
GNS Political Writer

Click the thumbnail above to look at a chart of some of the poll results.

WASHINGTON — With the 2002 elections a week away, Americans remain split over the direction of the country and the political party they want to control it.

A mid-October Mood of America poll for Gannett News Service showed that only slightly more Americans plan to vote for Democrats over Republicans in next week's congressional and gubernatorial elections. But by an even narrower margin, adults are more likely to say that Republicans have better ideas on the issues that concern them the most.

The poll of 804 adults was taken Oct. 16-22 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. It surveyed adults to try to determine why people don't vote, as well as solicited opinions of those who do vote. Some other polls survey only likely voters. The results in those polls this fall have also consistently shown a close split between the two political parties.

Although there are many high-stakes issues involved in the debate this year, from war to economic security to prescription drugs costs, not all Americans are that interested in voting - especially young people, according to GNS' poll.

Overall, 72 percent of respondents said it was very likely they will vote next Tuesday, but only 38 percent of those under 30 said they would do so. The Mood of America poll, done by Opinion Research Corp. of Princeton, N.J., sampled another 400 younger Americans; that sample of people 18 to 30 has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.

President Bush's job approval rating dipped to 57 percent in the latest poll. He had been above 70 percent for months after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But his pollster, Matthew Dowd, predicted in January that Bush's approval rating would fall closer to the election as voters returned to their partisan leanings.

The GNS poll points to an American public that is pulled in many directions when it comes to specific issues.

"It is not as though there is no story, it is that there are multiple story lines, an unusual number of story lines," said William Galston, a former domestic policy adviser to ex-President Bill Clinton.

That could prescribe a muddled result next Tuesday, with Republicans and Democrats canceling out wins across the map, and not much change in the makeup of the Congress. Or it could prescribe more dramatic changes in Congress if a majority of close races break toward one political party or another, as happened in both 1986 and 1996, when most close Senate races broke late toward Democrats.

"It is hard to see much of a break in either direction," Galston said. "But obviously, things are so evenly balanced it would not take much of a break to produce some institutional changes. "

Currently, there are 49 Democratic and 49 Republican senators with the death last Friday of Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., in a plane crash. But since Independent Jim Jeffords of Vermont votes with the Democrats, they control the Senate.

In the House, the Republicans have a 223-208 edge over Democrats. One independent votes with the Democrats, and there are three vacant seats.