Mexican ruling party ahead before key state vote - El Universal poll

Alfredo del Mazo of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), candidate for governor of the State of Mexico, gives a thumbs up to the audience during his electoral campaign in Ecatepec in State of Mexico, Mexico May 18, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) holds a 4.5 percentage point lead in the race to keep Mexico's most populous state out of the hands of a leftist party in an election at the weekend, a newspaper poll showed on Wednesday. The PRI candidate has the support of 33.8 percent of people interviewed in the poll in the El Universal national daily ahead of Sunday's vote, while the candidate for the leftist National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) has 29.3 percent support. The poll was conducted through 1,000 face-to-face interviews between May 26 and May 29 and has a 3.1 percent margin of error. (Reporting by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)