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Democratic primary survey shows large number still undecided
Associated Press
COLUMBIA--A new South Carolina Democratic presidential primary poll shows North Carolina Sen. John Edwards leading with the Rev. Al Sharpton not far behind.
The Feldman Group Inc.'s poll of 400 likely voters in the Feb. 3 South Carolina presidential primary showed Edwards with 17 percent and Sharpton with 12 percent. Twenty-two percent of those polled were undecided.
"It's always good to see more evidence of what you've known to be true," said Jenni Engebretsen, Edwards' South Carolina campaign spokeswoman.
The telephone poll was conducted Nov. 20-23 for Greenville Magazine and has a sampling margin of error of 4 percentage points.
Washington, D.C.-based Feldman Group typically polls for Demo-crats in political campaigns.
The poll comes four weeks after an American Research Group poll showed retired Gen. Wesley Clark leading with 17 percent to Edwards' 10 percent. More than a third of that poll's respondents were undecided.
Those percentages were reversed in the Feldman Group poll, in which 49 percent of the respondents were black, Feldman Group President Diane Feldman said. State Democrats expect blacks to account for about half of the primary voters.
Sharpton, who is black, led among black voters; Edwards, who is white, was second with black voters, Feldman said.
"I've said all along I thought the American Research Group poll was wrong," Sharpton said of the earlier poll, which showed him at 5 percent.
The longtime activist has focused on South Carolina and will spend Thanksgiving at a Charleston shelter and with the family of a soldier who died in Iraq. "I think we're going to surprise a lot of people with how strong we come out in the final result," he said.
The rest of the field shook out with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean at 11 percent; Clark at 10 percent; U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut at 9 percent; U.S. Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri at 8 percent; former U.S. Ambassador and Sen. Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois at 6 percent; U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts at 5 percent and U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio at 1 percent.
Clark's campaign isn't worried about the poll reversal.
"There are a lot of independent polls out there and you have to take them with a grain of salt," said Meighan Stone, Clark's South Carolina spokeswoman.
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