Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Poll: Clark closes gap on Dean
Race tightening
31%
HOWARD DEAN
29%
WESLEY CLARK
|
By Joe Burchell
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Retired Gen. Wesley Clark appears to have pulled into a dead heat with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in Arizona's Democratic presidential primary, according to poll results released Tuesday.
With 31 percent of 414 "certain" voters backing Dean and 29 percent supporting Clark, the two front-runners are easily outpacing the other seven candidates in the field for the Feb. 3 primary.
The poll, by New Jersey-based SurveyUSA and commissioned by KVOA Eyewitness News/Channel 4, has a 4.9 percent margin of error, making the gap between the two leaders statistically insignificant.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., is a distant third with 10 percent, followed by Rep. Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., with 9 percent, and Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., with 7 percent. Four others share 11 percent support, with 3 percent undecided.
The findings appear to show significant gains by Clark over the past two months.
An October poll by Behavior Research Center also showed Dean and Clark running one-two in Arizona. But at that time, Dean had a notably larger lead of 32 to 24 percent, and the field was more closely grouped, with 15 percent each going to Lieberman and Kerry.
The more recent poll was conducted Saturday through Monday, meaning that about two-thirds of the respondents were contacted after news of Saddam Hussein's capture. But Joseph Shipman, the survey company's director of election polling, said there's no evidence from the day-to-day responses that the capture significantly affected the polling.
The poll also hit 10 days after the start of an "extremely heavy" television campaign by Clark in Tucson and Phoenix.
Mark Riddle, state director for the Clark campaign, called the survey encouraging news.
"The more people learn about the general, the more they gravitate toward his message," Riddle said, noting that the television campaign is one of several avenues being taken to get that message out.
He said Clark's message resonates particularly well in Arizona, which tends to be somewhat conservative and has a large population of veterans.
The SurveyUSA results support that contention, showing Clark was more popular with older and more conservative voters while Dean was favored by younger and more liberal voters. Dean was also more popular with women.
* Contact reporter Joe Burchell at 573-4244 or burchell@azstarnet.com.
