I just found this on the New Hampshire Public Radio site:
http://www.nhpr.org/blogs/penpals2004/archives/000133.phpWARNING: This article is written by their "GOP Penpals," so I tried to verify it. I searched Google News (
http://news.google.com/ ) and came up with a link to Chicago Tribune, which is a subscription site. The description only says the poll measured DEFINITE caucus goers instead of "likely" and was conducted by a man named Selzer. If anyone is a Tribune subscriber, please post the whole poll article.
Here's the NHPR article, I am cut and pasting. The grammar and spelling are bad, but, like I said, it is written by a repub anyway:
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New Leader As Race Tighter Than Ever
By Eric Woolson on January 15, 2004
The mid-day news is Iowa is all about the new leader in the Democratic presidential race. Sen. John Kerry has eked ahead of his rivals, with 21 percent. Howard Dean has falled 4 points to 20 percent, tied with Rep. Dick Gephardt. And, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina has inched up a few points to 17 percent.
They're so close you could throw a blanket over all of them because they're all within the margin of error.
The question now: Is this poll reflecting the aforementioned voter volatility or are we seing a real trend? Actually, Kerry is only up marginally, but Dean was at 29 percent just a few days ago. He's receiving a few endorsements today, notably for Carole Moseley Braun, but it's uncertain how much, if any difference that will make in Iowa. We'll know on Monday where the polls are wrong, as is often the case, or if Dean has gone into a late-race freefall.
This is the point in the race when candidates are running on nothing but adrenaline, people are prone to making mistakes, the Iowa political climate becomes super-charged and things get very exciting.
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This does seem to confirm the news of the last few days of Kerry's surge in Iowa.
My own feeling is that if Dean lost Iowa to Gephardt, it wouldn't hurt him that much. It would only mean that Gephardt might be able to raise enough money to compete in the Feb 3 primaries, which he probably won't if he doesn't win.
If Kerry actually wins Iowa, though, it definitely hurts Dean and Clark, because all the buzz leading up to NH will be the "resurgent Kerry campaign" and how "Dean falters" etc.