Is Clark's rise in NH coming at Kerry's expense?

[Clark4Prez]

It is been floated here on DU that Clark's rise in NH has come mostly from Kerry falloff. I believe the numbers tell a different story.

First a look at the numbers from the last week of December:

http://americanresearchgroup.com/nhpoll/demtrack/demtrack04-07s.html

From Dec 26 through January 1-3, Kerry lost 5% and undecided lost 2%, putting 7% "in play" The following candidates numbers went up

Gephardt + 2%
Dean + 2%
Kucinich + 2%
Other + 1%


Which means that the Kerry and undecided loss was evenly distributed among four candidates (counting other and undecided as candidates), none of the "in play" numbers went to Clark.

Now, let's take a look at Jan 3 through today.

http://americanresearchgroup.com/nhpoll/demtrack/

Kerry lost 3 points, from 14% to 11% and Dean lost 4, from 39% to 35%, Gep lost 1 point from 6% to 5% undecided lost 1% from 17% to 16% and other lost 1 from 1% to 0%. There are 10 percentage points "in play", let's see where they went:

Clark + 8%
Lieberman +2%


A look at the numbers shows that Clark's gain has come from a wide variety of candidates and non-committed voters and not just from Kerry fall out.

[blm]

1. Clark does benefit from Kerry

but, I believe it is because Kerry is keeping Dean's numbers from rising by pointing out his inconsistencies and disingenuous attacks on the others. That is helping undecideds give other candidates another look. Clark especially, benefits from that.

It likely brought down Dean's numbers from that high of 45% he had last month.

I think Kerry and Clark knew what they are doing when Kerry decided to concentrate on Iowa and Clark pulled out of Iowa, with Kerry pressuring Dean publicly while Clark has the opportunity to concentrate on NH and define himself.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a Kerry/Clark or Clark/Kerry ticket at this point.

[Clark4Prez]

3. A Clark/Kerry Ticket would kick GOP butt!

I think that would be a win-win against president AWOL and "other priorities" Dick.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

2. also, Kerry has major GOTV in NH

he won't do worse than 20%- maybe as high as 25%.

[RogueTrooper]

4. Yes

I am wondering how this will effect Kerry's performance in Iowa.

[JI7]

5. John Kerry himself said this

when asked about losing support to clark because of their military background. kerry said clark has the ability take away from many candidates, and based on many different issues.

[Clark4Prez]

6. I believe that's true

I am not sure as the reason that some on DU hold on to this belief.

But, from the lack of response I got on this, I realize that an informed debate is not what most people are looking for.

My next post will be entitled "Dean has cooties", I bet I get 100 responses in under 5 minutes.

[jpgpenn]

7. Alot has to do with Dean deflating