Polls: Dean's Strength Is Among Liberals
story.news.yahoo.com
Mon Dec 8, 6:23 PM ET
By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Howard Dean (news - web sites) has built a strong core of support in the Democratic presidential contest among liberal, well-educated voters in early states like Iowa and New Hampshire — effectively dominating the voter group that also makes up a large share of John Kerry (news - web sites)'s supporters, polls suggest.
Dean has a solid lead over Kerry in New Hampshire — ranging from 14 points in a Pew Research Center poll out Monday to 25 points in a new poll from Franklin Pierce College.
Dean has a slight lead in Iowa, with the backing of 29 percent to 21 percent for Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt (news - web sites) and 18 percent for Kerry, according to Pew.
In South Carolina, several candidates are competing for the lead, with North Carolina Sen. John Edwards slightly ahead at 16 percent, followed by retired Gen. Wesley Clark (news - web sites) at 11 percent and Gephardt at 10 percent.
By building strong support among the most educated and liberal Democrats, Dean, the former Vermont governor, has blocked Kerry, a Massachusetts senator, from gaining ground among a group that has a substantial impact in early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire.
"Kerry has a base of supporters similar to Dean, but Dean has the lion's share of the well-educated liberal vote," said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. Kerry is running close to Gephardt in the battle for second place in Iowa and he is second in New Hampshire. But nationally, he gets only 6 percent of the vote — significantly behind Dean and Clark, each at 15 percent, and Gephardt and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (news - web sites), each at 12 percent.
While some Democratic veterans have expressed concerns about Dean's effectiveness in a general election campaign, Iowa and New Hampshire voters consider it one of his strong points. A third of likely voters in each state say they feel Dean has the best chance of beating Bush in November — far more than feel that way about any of the other Democratic candidates.
Anti-war sentiment was strongest in Iowa, where two-thirds say the decision to go to war in Iraq (news - web sites) was wrong. In New Hampshire and South Carolina, about four in 10 say going to war was right.
Despite Dean's strong showing in Iowa and New Hampshire, the competition in South Carolina is wide open, Kohut said.
"South Carolina is a conservative place," said Kohut, adding that it was far from clear whether Dean's advantage in New Hampshire would boost him in South Carolina, which holds its presidential contest on Feb. 3 with six other states.
"It certainly didn't help John McCain," Kohut said, referring to the Republican Arizona senator who beat George W. Bush in New Hampshire but lost South Carolina in the next contest.
The Pew state polls were taken Nov. 18-Dec. 4. The Iowa poll of 394 likely caucus voters has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 6 percentage points. The New Hampshire poll of 585 likely voters, the South Carolina poll of 566 likely voters and a separate national poll of 469 voters who are Democratic or lean Democratic had margins of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
___
On the Net:
Pew Research Center: people-press.org |
