Durham, N.H. – John Kerry (search) holds comfortable lead over Howard Dean (search) in the final UNH tracking poll. John Edwards (search), Wesley Clark, (search) and Joe Lieberman (search) are in a close battle for the third slot.
These findings are based on the 2004 New Hampshire Primary Tracking Poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center. This survey is sponsored by FOX News, WCVB-TV Boston, and WMUR-TV Manchester. Four hundred sixty-one (461) likely New Hampshire Democratic primary voters were interviewed between January 23 and January 25, 2004. The potential sampling error for the survey is ±4.6%. (For more information about the NH Primary Tracking Poll, go to www.unh.edu/survey-center and click on “Press Releases and Publications”.)
After the final weekend of campaigning in the 2004 New Hampshire Democratic primary, Kerry holds a comfortable 36% to 25% lead over Dean among likely Democratic voters. Edwards is leading for third place with 13%, Clark gets 11%, Lieberman gets 7%, and Dennis Kucinich (search) gets 3%. Six percent of likely voters remain undecided.
When undecided voters are allocated to the candidate they are most likely to support, 38% of likely voters favor Kerry, 26% support Dean, 14% support Edwards, 12% favor Clark, 7% favor Lieberman, and 2% support Kucinich.
Kerry’s lead has remained solid over the past 4 days. Dean has begun to recover from the disaster of the past week, but still is 11 percentage points behind Kerry. It will be very difficult for Dean to regain enough support to overtake Kerry. Clark had been challenging Dean for the second slot in New Hampshire, but he has slipped over the past week as support for Edwards and Lieberman has increased.
Support for candidates has solidified — 70% of likely primary voters say they are certain to support the candidate they favor. Dean (78%) and Kerry (75%) have the highest percentage of definite supporters.
Other good news for Kerry is that he is the second choice of Clark, Dean, Edwards, and Lieberman voters. Only 13% of likely voter say that Dean is their second choice.
The confidence of Kerry supporters is increasing — 55% are very confident that he will win the Democratic nomination while only 22% of Dean supporters are very confident that Dean will win the nomination.
Kerry is well positioned for the election as his support is evenly distributed across political and demographic groups. Support for Dean is concentrated among liberals and young voters.
New Hampshire Democratic Primary
Note: Percentages may not sum to 100% due to rounding.
Click here for the full PDF poll.
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