y more than two to one, members of the Republican National Committee say that Trent Lott should step down as the Senate Republican leader, warning that he is damaging the party's image and undermining its efforts to appeal to minorities, according to a New York Times/CBS News Poll.

In a sign of Mr. Lott's apparently tenuous situation, only 16 percent of the members of the national committee - the organizational backbone of the party, made up of elected and appointed officials nationwide - said they believed that Mr. Lott would survive the cascade of questions about his views on segregation. Mr. Lott, of Mississippi, said two weeks ago that the nation would be better off if Senator Strom Thurmond, who ran for president in 1948 on a platform that advocated segregation, had been elected.

At the same time, a Times/CBS News poll of Democratic National Committee members found that Democrats were glum about their performance in the November elections - and worried about the next round. More than 50 percent of the committee members said it would be somewhat difficult or very difficult to unseat President Bush in 2004 in their states. By contrast, nearly two-thirds of the Republican committee members said they thought Mr. Bush faced a very easy or somewhat easy task in winning re-election in their states.

To recapture the White House, the Democratic committee members said, their party needed to move to the center. But they also said the party's candidate in 2004 should press to roll back the Bush tax cuts, campaign for stricter gun control laws and challenge Mr. Bush on the war in Iraq and measures to increase surveillance of ordinary Americans, according to the poll.

The Times/CBS News polls of the two political committees pointed to one unexpected confluence of views: The perception that Al Gore would have been a weak candidate had he decided to run in 2004. In interviews conducted mostly before Mr. Gore announced on Sunday that he would not run, 43 percent of Republicans said they hoped the Democrats would choose Mr. Gore at their convention 2004, presumably because they believed he would be defeated. And 42 percent of Democrats said they hoped Mr. Gore would not run.

Just 17 percent of Democrats questioned before Mr. Gore's announcement said that Mr. Gore was their preferred presidential candidate, compared with 19 percent who named Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts.

The two polls of the members of the Republican and Democratic national committees - the most active partisans in the nation - were conducted by telephone and fax from December 9 to 18.

Among Democrats, 313 of the 440 committee members were interviewed, while 128 of the 165 Republican committee members participated in the survey. Each poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. And 97 Republican committee members were reinterviewed regarding Mr. Lott. The margin of error for that subgroup is plus or minus six percentage points.

The polls were conducted in what is typically a sleepy period in politics - the weeks between Election Day and New Year's Day. But this season has given committee members plenty to talk about. For Democrats, it was Mr. Gore's exit from the presidential race, and the struggle by other candidates to take advantage of his departure. For Republicans, it was the battle over Mr. Lott, who has been in line to become the Senate majority leader in new Senate.

In the poll, 45 percent of Republicans said he should not be the party's leader, compared with 20 percent who said he should be. Thirty-six percent said they had no opinion. Nearly half of the committee members said they believed it would be bad for the party if Mr. Lott continued as its leader. But an overwhelming number said Mr. Bush should stay out of the fight, allowing the Senate to deal with its own difficulties.

"Trent Lott should step down," Lynn Windel, a Republican committee member from Oklahoma, said in a follow-up interview. "Our party has made such a concerted effort to dispel the myth that we are insensitive to minorities, especially to African-Americans, and his statement is so damaging."

But Arlene Ellis, a Republican committee member from Utah, said: "Trent Lott should continue because he has done a good job. What he said was repugnant, but he apologized."

If Mr. Lott steps aside, about one-quarter said they would like to see Bill Frist, the Tennessee senator who said today he was interested in running for Mr. Lott's post, get the job.

Among many Democrats, the initial expectation was that Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, who was Mr. Gore's running mate in 2000, would inherit the bulk of Mr. Gore's support. But the poll of this decidedly unrepresentative group of Democrats, who tend to be more liberal than rank-and-file party members, suggested that this was not the case.

When committee members were recanvassed on the Democratic field after Mr. Gore made his announcement, Mr. Lieberman was the choice of just 2 percent, compared with Mr. Kerry, who was at the top of the field with 23 percent.

Two other widely known Democrats who have been considering a race for president - Richard A. Gephardt, the House minority leader, and Tom Daschle, the departing Senate majority leader - have apparently not stirred much enthusiasm among this class of Democratic activists. Five percent named Mr. Gephardt, while just 2 percent named Mr. Daschle.

Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont was named by 4 percent of the respondents. Another likely Democratic candidate, Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, was the choice of 8 percent.

If there was a scattering of opinion about 2004, there was something approaching a consensus about the presidential contest of 2008: Forty-four percent of the Democratic committee members said they expected Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York to run for president then.
Members of both party committees say the economy will be a crucial issue in the 2004 campaign. But Republicans were much more likely to say that the war with Iraq and terror would also be a decisive issue in the race; nearly 9 of 10 Republicans said they believed Democrats would be vulnerable on each of these issues.

Even in the midst of the turmoil involving Mr. Lott, Republican leaders are much more optimistic about the presidential election and say the party should stay the course. Nearly 6 of 10 Republican members described themselves and their party as conservative. And in contrast to the Democrats, Republicans said the party should oppose gun control and champion limits on access to abortion.

Among Democrats, most committee members said they were generally satisfied with the quality of their presidential candidates, and notwithstanding the setbacks of the last election, 74 percent said they believed that Terry McAuliffe should remain the party's political chairman.

But there is abundant evidence that the Democratic Party is confused about where it should go. More than one-quarter said the party should position itself more to the left on issues in the coming year, while nearly 50 percent said it needed to be "more moderate." About 70 percent described the Democratic Party as moderate on most issues.

Yet on a variety of subjects that are likely to be prominent in a presidential campaign, the Democrats wanted their candidates to stake out positions on the left side of the political spectrum.

In addition to opposing Mr. Bush's tax cuts and pushing for stricter gun control, Democrats said their nominee should oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and opt for protecting the environment over producing energy. They also said the party should oppose any effort by the federal government to monitor telephone calls and e-mail of ordinary citizens as part of its anti-terrorism efforts.