You will be delighted to see that Edwards did not help in North Carolina.
Poll: Edwards pick gives Kerry's campaign a boost
By Susan Page, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — John Kerry gets a boost nationwide from his choice of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as running mate. But Edwards fails to make his home state competitive, the first in a series of state-by-state polls by USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup shows. (Related item: Latest poll results)
Democratic hopes that Edwards' selection would broaden the list of battleground states in the South were dented by the survey. In it, President Bush and Vice President Cheney hold a commanding 54%-39% lead among likely voters in North Carolina. The lead narrows to 49%-43% among registered voters.
Nationwide, however, Edwards gives Kerry a six-point bounce. The Democrats now lead Bush-Cheney by 50% to 45% among likely voters, with independent candidate Ralph Nader at 2%. Three weeks earlier, before Kerry announced his vice presidential choice, Bush led Kerry by a single point.
The national survey was taken Thursday through Sunday, the state poll Friday through Sunday. The margin of error for likely voters is +/- 4 percentage points in the national survey, +/- 5 in the state.
Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush campaign, says the findings indicate that the Tar Heel state remains safely Republican in the presidential election. Bush demolished Al Gore by 13 points there in 2000. The state hasn't voted for the Democratic contender since Jimmy Carter in 1976.
But Mark Mellman, Kerry's pollster, points to a huge turnout for Kerry and Edwards at a rally in Raleigh on Saturday and notes the Bush campaign is airing TV ads in the state. "When they take their ads off we'll know they believe" the state isn't competitive, he says.
In the national poll, Edwards didn't help Kerry's draw among Southerners, which was 44% before and after Edwards joined the ticket.
He did help Kerry consolidate support among Democrats and those who lean Democratic. Three weeks earlier, 85% of those voters supported Kerry. Now 92% do.
The findings suggest that Edwards is likely to be less focused on his native South than on Midwest battlegrounds. In states such as Ohio and Iowa, his pitch on working-class angst seems to resonate.
While comparisons are complicated, the Edwards "bounce" is about the same as the 6-point gain Bill Clinton got when he chose Gore in 1992. But it's less than the 12-point jump among likely voters that another running mate gave the top of his ticket: When Bush chose Cheney in 2000.
Find this article at:
usatoday.com |
