December 29, 1991 Boston Globe, By Laura A. Kiernan:
"Voters choose Bush in poll for media.
"New Hampshire voters agree the economy is bad, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't vote for President George Bush over the Democratic candidates if the general election were held today, according to a poll conducted for The Concord Monitor and other media outlets by the Washington-based company Political/Media Research Inc.
"The poll of 827 registered voters found that 83 percent of them believed New Hampshire's economic condition was the worst in the country and 60 percent would give Bush just a "fair" or a "poor" overall job performance rating. But, Bush still would get 50 percent of the vote, according to the poll results, which were published early last week.
"Head-to-head with the president, the strongest candidate among the Democrats was former Massachusetts Sen. Paul Tsongas, who got 33 percent of the vote compared to 50 percent for Bush, the poll said. Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Nebraska) and Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton each got 32 percent when paired against Bush, who got 50 percent of the vote if he ran against Clinton and 52 percent against Kerrey.
"Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) who has been in New Hampshire campaigning since the summer, nevertheless didn't fair too well in the name-recognition category. According to the Monitor poll, only 25 percent of the likely Democratic voters polled recognized Harkin's name.
"On the Republican side, Bush led his GOP rival Buchanan 58 percent to 30 percent, but 12 percent of the 332 likely Republican voters polled said they didn't know who they would vote for on Feb. 18. For the Democrats, Tsongas got 25 percent of the vote; Clinton got 17 percent; Kerrey had 14 percent; Harkin had 8 percent; former California Gov. Jerry Brown had 6 percent and Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder had 1 percent. But, a whopping 29 percent of the Democratic voters were undecided." |
