BOSTON--Despite trailing frontrunner Al Gore '69 by large margins in national opinion polls, Democratic presidential candidate Bill Bradley is catching up with the vice president--with the help of Bay State backers--in the one statistic that might matter most at this stage of the campaign: money.

The former New Jersey senator and professional basketball player held a fundraiser at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel Tuesday night to add to the $11 million war chest he has amassed over the past six months, bringing in another $200,000 at the $1,000-a-plate event, a campaign official said.

Though Bradley has still raised less money than Gore, who has collected over $18 million thus far, the former senator raised only $2 million less than the vice president during the second quarter--$7 million to Gore's $9 million, according to the Associated Press. During the first quarter of the year, Gore collected more than twice as much money as Bradley.

So far, Bradley's fundraising success has yet to translate into greater support from voters. Nationwide, Gore leads among Democrats by a three-to-one margin according to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll.

Local polls, though, tell a different story. In a University of Massachusetts poll released this week, Bradley trails Gore by only three percentage points among Bay State voters. The poll gave Gore 38 percent of the Massachusetts vote compared to Bradley's 35 percent, with 10 percent of respondents still undecided.

The turnout at Tuesday night's fundraiser seemed to support the local poll's surprising numbers. Bradley's staff said the event raised more money than they had expected.

After schmoozing with the 200 supporters in the opulent hotel ballroom, Bradley spoke for about 20 minutes. He wandered from topic to topic, offering few specific policy goals. Instead, he outlined the broad themes he said would define his presidency.

Bradley said that if elected, he hoped to maintain the economic prosperity of the Clinton administration, protect the environment, end child poverty and improve race relations.

At a news conference before the fundraiser, Bradley said he would begin fleshing out these general ideas in the fall as the primary race heats up.