Poll underscores Medvedev's popularity

MOSCOW, Dec. 8 (UPI) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev would easily win re-election if the vote were held today, a survey by a Kremlin-friendly polling agency indicates.

VtsIom said Wednesday that Medvedev would garner 50 percent of the vote provided that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stayed out of the race, The Moscow Times reported.

Other possible candidates, including Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov, polled in the single digits, the telephone survey showed.

Both Medvedev and Putin have declined to state publicly whether they will run for election in 2012.

Researcher Stepan Lvov of VtsIom said a separate survey on the public's trust toward politicians had Putin topping Medvedev 48 percent to 42 percent.

The VtsIom survey covered 1,600 respondents in 46 of Russia's 83 regions. It carried a margin of error of 3.4 percentage points.

Survey data was released last week.