Dean affirms his lead, new poll finds
By Anne E. Kornblut, Globe Staff, 10/26/2003
Howard Dean is holding firmly to his lead in the New Hampshire primary, largely untouched by the high-profile entry of retired Army General Wesley K. Clark into the race or by targeted attacks from other candidates, according to a poll of independent and Democratic voters conducted last week.
Dean, the former governor of Vermont, drew support from 37 percent of those surveyed -- a 13-point lead over the next closest candidate, Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry, who garnered 24 percent. The other seven contenders, including Clark, remained far behind, with support in single-digit figures, according to the Boston Globe/WBZ poll conducted by KRC Communications Research.
Perhaps most notably, Dean surged into the lead as the Democrat considered most able to beat President Bush, with 35 percent of respondents choosing him as the strongest general election candidate. Twenty percent said the same for Kerry -- a sharp drop from a Globe poll taken six weeks earlier that found Kerry and Dean all but tied on the same question.
"I think Democrats want a winner at all costs, and Kerry has underperformed in some Democratic primary voters' view," Jennifer Donahue, senior adviser for political affairs at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. "They will go with whoever they think can beat Bush, and right now Dean has come across in a more clear and convincing fashion than Kerry. That doesn't mean Kerry can't do it, but so far they have found in Dean someone they feel confident in."
Some elements of the race still appear to be evolving: respondents reported being more concerned now about health care costs and the economy than foreign policy, the issue that dominated the presidential race at first. They also said they were relatively unconcerned about whether a candidate had military experience -- a factor that Democratic analysts once saw as critical in challenging a president who has conducted two wars and a factor Kerry and Clark, both of whom have notable wartime experience, have sought to play up.
Fundamental shifts may yet occur: Clark has just begun his New Hampshire push, and Kerry is intensifying his; at least four more debates are on the schedule, including one tonight in Detroit; and as always, voters will pay more attention as the election draws near. Even the Red Sox have been a factor, Donahue said. Only after their playoff exit 10 days ago did many voters begin to focus seriously on the campaign.
But as the candidates head into the final three-month stretch before ballots are cast on Jan. 27, certain opinions do seem to be crystallizing, especially regarding Dean. Downplayed early on as a small-state governor with no foreign policy experience, Dean appears to have muted one of the Democrats' chief concerns -- his viability. This is helped in part by the renewed focus on domestic issues that respondents expressed.
The news for the rest of the field was less encouraging: Kerry's support, although solid, has not increased since the last Globe poll, while Clark remains relatively unknown to voters despite the attention his campaign launch attracted last month.
At the same time, statewide opinion of Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, once touted as the national front-runner, has grown substantially worse in recent weeks, one of several signs that New Hampshire voters are turning against candidates who have not gained momentum so far.
"Dean has a solid base of support; it's larger than Kerry's solid base of support -- and after that, it's wide open," said Gerry Chervinsky, president of the Newton-based polling firm that conducted the survey. "Wesley Clark is not well known enough to make the impact that some thought he might. Somebody is going to be third here, and that person -- whoever is third in New Hampshire -- is going to be credible."
One of the voters keeping an open mind is Lennie Morrill, 35, a registered Democrat in Manchester, who said he is supporting Dean, but also would consider Kerry, and doesn't yet know enough about Clark to form an opinion. He said Dean "will in the long run" probably be most able to beat Bush. But, he said, "I'm still kind of waiting," reinforcing the notion that there is still room for candidates besides Dean to gain traction.
"I keep watching more and more of it, and that [Dean] is the way I'm leaning right now, but it's certainly not 100 percent," he said.
Kerry's popularity remains high, with 65 percent reporting they viewed him favorably and 12 percent reporting an unfavorable view. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina is also seen in a positive light by New Hampshire voters, 45 percent of whom reported having a favorable opinion of him vs. 9 percent who view him unfavorably. Clark, meanwhile, is seen favorably by 31 percent in the survey, with 15 percent reporting an unfavorable opinion.
Representative Richard A. Gephardt, however, appears to have slipped in voters' minds: While 48 percent held a favorable opinion of him in the last poll, 38 percent now said they have the same opinion.
Lieberman suffered one of the greatest popularity drops: Twenty-eight percent reported having a favorable opinion of the former vice-presidential candidate. But 42 percent said they regarded him unfavorably. That marked a dramatic shift from six weeks earlier, when 46 percent viewed Lieberman favorably and 25 percent did not.
"Voters to a certain extent are turned off by the large field, and those candidates they think have no chance of winning, they are turning negative toward," Chervinsky said. Other candidates who suffered under similar circumstances in the survey were Representative Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio, former ambassador Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, and Al Sharpton of New York.
Although foreign policy has largely defined the presidential campaign so far, with the Democratic candidates seeming to rise and fall on the ability to explain their views on Iraq, voters in the New Hampshire survey are far more worried these days about domestic issues. Of those polled, 34 percent said the economy and jobs would determine how they vote, while another 24 percent said health care and health insurance are their top priority.
Foreign policy matters -- including the war in Iraq, the Middle East peace process, and international relations -- registered at a much lower 15 percent, a drop from 23 percent who said it was most important in the last poll.
Similarly, while 15 percent said they viewed it as "very" important for the Democratic ticket to include a military veteran, 45 percent said it was "somewhat important," and 37 percent dismissed it entirely.
By and large, respondents were evenly split in their views of the US role in Iraq, strongly opposing the proposed $87 billion US package to fund reconstruction but preferring, by 47 percent to 37 percent, to see American troops remain in Iraq until a democratically elected government is in place. All of those figures would tend to bode well for Dean, Chervinsky said.
Nonetheless, voters seem to be making their decision as much by gauging a candidate's ability to win a national race as by the policies they support.
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