National polls are interesting to monitor broader trends and dictate some fundraising, but the Democratic nomination is a state-by-state battle. Campaign insiders pay more attention to what’s going on in the states than they do anything else.
With this in mind, the latest poll numbers out of California are very important. Not only is California the nation’s most populous state, it is a top source of campaign fundraising and the site of a Super Tuesday primary on March 2, 2004.
At this point, it appears California is increasingly looking to Wesley Clark, and slowly moving away from Howard Dean.
Field Poll data released today shows Clark in the lead in California with 17 percent, while Dean and Lieberman were tied for second with 14 percent. Kerry was fourth with 9 percent, but everyone else was at 5 percent or lower.
While these results show Dean within the margin of error for the lead, the poll has to be disappointing for the former Vermont governor. Just last month, the same polling outfit showed Dean well ahead in California with 23 percent, while Clark was far behind as an about-to-announce candidate at 4 percent. In other words, Dean’s support has been cut almost in half in just one month’s time in the country’s biggest state.
Moreover, Democrats everywhere are counting on winning California in 2004 as key to any electoral strategy. Indeed, California’s 54 electoral votes are, by themselves, one-fifth of the votes needed to win a presidential election.
As such, it’s worth noting that California’s Field Poll showed that Clark was the only Dem candidate to lead Bush in a hypothetical head-to-head match-up statewide. Clark leads Bush 45 percent to 42 percent in California, while all the other Dems trailed Bush by varying degrees.