(Host) Many people will be watching the southern counties in New Hampshire when the vote totals come in Wednesday evening. Michael Dupre is a sociologist from Saint Anselm College in Goffstown, New Hampshire. He says that region will be a test of how Howard Dean:
(Dupre) “Particularly, you want to look at how he’s going to do in the southern tier of New Hampshire – that’s Kerry country. If he could hold his own against Senator Kerry in Rockingham and Hillsborough counties – the southern tier – leaving New Hampshire, he should be in good shape in the south.”
(Host) Dupre says that if Dean’s statewide numbers are close to Kerry’s by the end of the night, it will ease some of the doubts that have cropped up about Dean’s candidacy:
(Dupre) “People were – many in the press were discounting him after Iowa. That his campaign was dissolving, it was falling apart. Some were showing 15 to 17 point difference in the polls between Senator Kerry and Governor Dean. And if he stays within, let’s say 3 to 5 percentage points, that shows that he has rebounded, that Senator Kerry’s support is soft and the race is still on.”
(Host) Professor Michael Dupre of Saint Anselm College in New Hampshire.