Kerry favourite to take New Hampshire

Senator John Kerry has a comfortable lead in an opinion poll on the eve of the New Hampshire primary to select a Democratic presidential candidate.

The Massachusetts senator, struggling for third place in New Hampshire polls just two weeks ago, appears to be benefiting from last week’s surprise victory in the Iowa caucuses.

He has an 11-point lead over former Vermont governor Howard Dean in the latest USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll.

The winner of tomorrow’s primary can expect to have the political wind at his back as the Democratic presidential campaign heads into next week’s seven-state bonanza.

But for the rest of the field, the first primary is a fight for standing and survival at a time the campaign to determine a contender to take on President Bush takes on a more national cast.

There are primaries and caucuses on February 3 in Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, New Mexico North Dakota, Oklahoma and South Carolina. That is 269 national convention delegates at stake in one night, compared with 45 in last Monday’s Iowa caucuses and 22 in New Hampshire.

The Democratic candidate needs 2,162 out of a total of 4,322 delegates to win the party’s nomination to run in the November election.

“There are two tickets out of New Hampshire,” said Michael Meehan, a Kerry strategist .

“No one has ever won the Democratic nomination without finishing first or second in New Hampshire.”

Kerry’s rivals hope and insist that 2004 will be different. But each hope hinges on the ability to raise campaign cash in the face of defeat.

Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut claims the money to compete in all seven states. He hopes for a better-than-expected finish in New Hampshire before heading for Delaware.

Recent surveys suggest he is out of last place among the major candidates in New Hampshire and into a position of relative parity with Senator John Edwards and retired General Wesley Clark.

The view is different at the Edwards campaign. He finished an unexpectedly strong second in last week’s Iowa caucuses and hopes to surprise again in New Hampshire. But his goal all along has been to break through in his native South.

“We believe the premier contest of the 3rd (of February) is going to be South Carolina,” said David Ginsburg, a spokesman for the North Carolina senator, currently running anywhere between third and fifth place in the New Hampshire polls.