After the holiday drought, expect polls to come fast and furious. This one is the
latest by Harris for CNN/Time. MoE 4.9 %. (November results in parenthesis)
Not sure 23 (23)
Dean 22 (14)
Kerry 10 (9)
Lieberman 9 (11)
Clark 8 (12)
Gephardt 7 (6)
Sharpton 6 (5)
Edwards 5 (5)
Kucinich 5 (2)
Braun 2 (4)
Dean also handily beats any of the other candidates in one-to-one matchups. Clark is the only candidate that keeps Dean under the 50 percent mark.
Dean 46
Clark 32
Not Sure 22
And since many of you like to play the "electability" game, here are the
head-to-head matchups, coming back down to earth now that the "Saddam bounce" is waning. MoE 4%.
Bush 51 (52)
Dean 46 (40)
Not Sure 3 (8)
Bush 53 (49)
Clark 43 (42)
Not Sure 3 (9)
Dean polls the best against Bush, with Lieberman a point back (52/46/2).
Update: One last point: head-to-head polls for the general are about as practically useful as national polls for the Dem primary. That's because we don't have a national election, we have 51 state elections (including DC). Hence, as we all so painfully know, you can lose the popular vote and win the election.
As in the primaries, the most important polls in the general will be those from key battleground states. The national poll numbers will have valuable morale and PR value, but the real story will at the state level.