Rock Solid
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Kerry’s Win in ‘Granite State’ Makes Him the Democrat to Beat
Analysis
By Lisa M. Todorovich
ABCNEWS.com
M A N C H E S T E R, N.H., Jan. 28 — Talk about a one-two punch.
Sen. John Kerry, who had trailed the upstart phenomenon of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in polls in New Hampshire for months, captured the Granite State definitively Tuesday night and made last Monday's win in Iowa real.
With 97 percent of precincts reporting, Kerry won the votes of 39 percent of New Hampshire Democrats. Dean won 26 percent.
The race for the third and fourth spots was a photo finish; Gen. Wesley Clark and Sen. John Edwards had just over 12 percent of the vote, with Clark edging out Edwards by just 0.4 percent. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who like Clark had skipped Iowa to focus his energies on the Granite State, came in fifth with 9 percent.
According to the New Hampshire Secretary of State, a record 200,000 ballots were cast on Tuesday, surpassing the 1992 tally of 170,000.
For Kerry, who weeks ago literally bet his house on his presidential bid, taking out a $6 million mortgage on his Boston house, the victory puts him in a position to benefit from free media coverage, reap the benefits of a fund-raising machine that's gaining momentum, and introduce himself to voters who before now hadn't been paying much attention.
His decision to forgo public financing and avoid state-by-state spending caps allows him to put any fund-raising boon to use building on-the-ground organizations in the seven states holding contests on Feb. 3.
For Dean, the second-place finish 13 points back represents the second setback in eight days, and the first in a state where his lead had been in the double digits and prohibitive for months.
The former Vermont governor took his lumps in the press and among voters after his spirited reaction to his third-place finish in Iowa, and spent much of the ensuing week in New Hampshire doing damage control, bringing in big guns including David Letterman, Jon Stewart, and his wife, Dr. Judith Steinberg Dean, his co-star in an exclusive interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer.
Despite the disappointments, however, Dean has by far raised more money than his rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, which will allow him to play well on the air and on the ground on Feb. 3 in South Carolina, Missouri, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and Delaware — and depending on how those go, beyond.
Dean wasn't the only one who fell short of his goals on Tuesday.
Clark's third-place-by-a-hair finish was less than what the campaign expected, given his fund-raising abilities and showing in the polls during the weeks when his rivals focused their efforts on Iowa. Clark, however, is on the air with ads in the states holding votes on Feb. 3, and he has long played up his Arkansas roots as a selling point among Southern voters.
Edwards found himself unable to keep his momentum from his second-place Iowa finish rolling in New Hampshire, but he is well organized in South Carolina, a state he has long said he needs to win.
After all the hoopla, the ads, the analysis, the punditry, and the pollsters, voters ultimately voted based on the issues that they care about and chose the candidates whose beliefs most closely matched theirs.
According to an analysis of Tuesday's exit polls by ABCNEWS Polling Director Gary Langer, Dean won more support than Kerry among voters who said they cared most about the war in Iraq (19 percent) — but narrowly. Among those who counted health care, the economy, and education among their top concerns (76 percent), Kerry beat Dean by double-digit margins.
And all that stump talk about electability and who can beat President Bush in the fall wasn't just talk.
While more voters said the candidates' stance on issues ruled their decision, about a third counted electability as their deciding factor — and Kerry won on that front by 40 points — 54 percent to Dean's 14.
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