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Polls: Kerry has huge leads in N.Y. and California
Edwards a distant second
MSNBC News Services
Updated: 11:45 a.m. ET Feb. 20, 2004
Polls released Friday show Democratic front-runner Sen. John Kerry has huge leads over Sen. John Edwards in New York and California, two of the 10 "Super Tuesday" states voting on March 2.
The New York poll, by Marist College’s Institute for Public Opinion, found Kerry leading 66 percent to 14 percent among likely voters. Al Sharpton and Rep. Dennis Kucinich were in single digits.
A Public Policy Institute of California survey released Friday found Kerry had 55 percent support among Democrats in that state, and Edwards just 10 percent.
The two states are by far the largest delegate prizes in the Democratic contest. Californians will award 370 while 236 are at stake in New York. Kerry already has a commanding lead in the race for the 2,162 delegates needed to clinch the nomination — 608 to 190 for Edwards. A total of 1,151 delegates will be on the line in March 2 voting.
While Edwards has said he expects to do particularly well in upstate New York where manufacturing job losses have been heavy, the Marist poll found Kerry was well ahead — 70 percent to 14 percent — in that traditionally more conservative region.
Fifty percent of the likely voters said they were firmly committed to their candidate of choice and 36 percent said what they were mainly looking for was a candidate who could beat President Bush.
The telephone poll of 404 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted Tuesday through Thursday and had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.
New York kickoff
Edwards planned to launch his upstate campaign later Friday in Buffalo and said he would focus on the region’s job losses over the years.
Meanwhile, the California survey found that likely Golden State voters favor a Democratic nominee over Bush — 54 percent to 37 percent. Nine percent are undecided.
The poll was conducted Feb. 8-16 with 1,013 likely voters. The margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Campaigning in Savannah, Ga., on Friday, Edwards sought to broaden his jobs-and-trade theme in hopes of courting black voters in key primaries, arguing that as a Southern politician he has a special responsibility to lead the nation on civil rights.
Edwards said he grew up in the South in the 1950s and the 1960s and witnessed segregation in its closing days, which he said makes him a messenger advocating civil rights.
“I have, as many of you have, seen the ugliest face of segregation and discrimination,” he said. “That responsibility, by the way, is to lead, not follow, when it comes to issues of civil rights.”
On another front, the Edwards campaign challenged Kerry to participate in four debates as soon as possible.
In addition to a debate in Los Angeles on Thursday, Edwards said in a letter to the Kerry campaign, “I ask that we also give people in place like New York and Ohio the chance to see where we stand on the issues.” He has called for debates in New York and Georgia while campaigning in those states.
AFL-CIO backs Kerry
On Thursday, Kerry earned the endorsement of the AFL-CIO, with the head of organized labor saying “the time has come to unite behind one man, one leader, one candidate.”
Amid chants of “Kerry! Kerry!” the Massachusetts senator welcomed the support of a formidable ally as he tries to blunt Edwards’ challenges to his position on trade.
“Today we stand united in a common cause and that common cause is not just to defeat George Bush, but it is to put our country back on track, on the road of prosperity, the road of fairness, the road of jobs,” Kerry told the crowd.
AFL-CIO President John Sweeney called Kerry a friend of the working man as he urged labor to stand with one candidate. The AFL-CIO, composed of 64 unions representing more than 13 million U.S. workers, is planning an unprecedented effort to mobilize their members to vote for Kerry.
In another coup for the Democrat, he was poised to pick up the backing of nine-term Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a leader in the civil rights movement whose support will be crucial in the state’s March 2 primary. Georgia has 86 delegates at stake, and Southern-bred Edwards has made it a prime target.
The Democratic race makes a pit stop next week in Hawaii, Idaho and Utah — where 61 delegates are at stake — before turning to March 2 and the motherlode of 1,151 delegates, more than half the total needed to claim the nomination.
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