Poll: Dems Would Dump Kerry for Hillary

Sen. John Kerry may have his party's nomination locked up, but rank-and-file Democrats would still rather nominate Sen. Hillary Clinton to run against President Bush this year, a new poll shows.

In a survey of 500 Democrats and Democrat-leaning Independents, pollster Frank Luntz pitted Clinton against Kerry in a head-to-head match-up. Forty-seven percent said they'd dump Kerry if the former first lady would agree to be their standard-bearer. Only 44 percent said they'd stand by their man.

Luntz added the question to his poll after top talk radio host Rush Limbaugh asked him to survey Democrats on whether they still preferred other candidates to Kerry. In a list of candidates that didn't include Clinton's name, 40 percent stuck with the Massachusetts Democrat while 57 percent chose others who ran in the primaries.

"This is not a ringing endorsement of their nominee," Limbaugh told his audience after announcing the results on Friday. "It means that people haven't changed their minds about their preference, and it means they're really not lined up behind Kerry at all."

Late last year when the nomination was still in play, Sen. Kerry insisted to CNN that at least one poll showed him leading Mrs. Clinton. At the time, one survey after another showed that Democrats preferred Hillary by wide margins - a trend that continued right up until the Iowa caucuses.

A Kerry campaign spokesman, however, later had to admit that the Democrats' second favorite candidate had misspoken.

Editor's note: