Washington ? His support slumping in the polls, President Bush is campaigning more vigorously for re-election at the same time Republicans unleash their surrogates to take the shine off Democratic front-runner John Kerry.

“The polls are where we expected them to be,” Republican Party chairman Ed Gillespie said Friday in an interview, one of several GOP officials to attribute Bush’s slippage to months of attacks by Democrats.

“Our political season hasn’t really begun yet.”

While other GOP officials privately acknowledged concern about Bush’s political standing, several sources said Republicans intended to begin airing television commercials soon after Democrats settle on a nominee — whether that occurs as early as the Feb. 17 Wisconsin primary or later.

Eventually, Republicans hope to depict Kerry as a liberal whose rhetoric is often at odds with his record, according to several party strategists.

Terry Holt, a spokesman for the president’s re-election committee, declined to discuss plans for advertising. At the same time, he said, “There won’t be such a free ride” for the president’s Democratic challenger in the fall campaign.

For his part, Bush has taken to shadowing Democrats, and officials say he’ll soon embark on a heavier round of travel.

He flew to New Hampshire two days after the state’s presidential primary, hoping to erase any damage inflicted by weeks of Democratic campaigning. A few days after the South Carolina primary, he flew to Charleston in an appearance designed to regain the political spotlight in that state as well.

Sunday, Bush is booked for an hour-long interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” the first for a chief executive who has set a modern record for fewest full-scale news conferences. Next week, he also goes to Florida for the Daytona 500 — a high-profile event in a sport that has expanded its appeal in recent years beyond Southern white conservatives to a more diverse audience.

First lady Laura Bush is also raising her profile, and told CNN in an interview this week that the couple’s 22-year-old daughters, Jenna and Barbara, are contemplating a role in what may be their father’s last campaign.

The increased activity comes at a time when a spate of polls show the president’s support is slipping, and some surveys put Kerry in the lead.

The decline is particularly noticeable in The Associated Press poll conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs earlier this week. Bush’s approval rating stood at 47 percent in the survey, with 50 percent of those polled saying they disapprove of his performance in office.

A month earlier, Bush’s approval stood at 56 percent, with disapproval at 42 percent.

In the poll completed this week, 37 percent of those surveyed said they would definitely vote to re-elect Bush, while 43 percent said they would definitely vote for someone else. Another 18 percent said they would consider voting for someone else.

Bush’s campaign aides attribute the decline to months of ceaseless Democratic criticism of the president, largely left without a counter.

“For several weeks, John Kerry and the other candidates have had center stage and have issued a lot of angry attacks against the president,” Holt said. “As the race narrows to a two-man contest we expect that it will be very tight, very competitive all the way down to the end.”