Jan. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Senator John Kerry has used support from military veterans to take the lead over former Vermont Governor Howard Dean in a poll of Iowa Democrats. Dean's poll numbers also faltered in New Hampshire, site of the other presidential contest in January.

Kerry has support from 24 percent of likely Iowa caucus voters, with Dean and Missouri Representative Richard Gephardt tied for second at 19 percent, according to a Zogby International poll for MSNBC and Reuters news service. Senator John Edwards is fourth with 17 percent. The survey has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points.

Kerry has won growing support from military veterans in Iowa, said Stephen Hess, a political scholar at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Dean may have been hurt by his own television advertisements criticizing his rivals for their support of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Hess said.

``Iowans don't like the gloves-off, bare-knuckle politics'' expressed in ads aired by Dean and Gephardt, Hess said. Kerry has ``changed his whole focus to Iowa. He's all over the lot and has somehow made a connection with veterans,'' Hess said.

Clark in New Hampshire

The poll shows an erosion of support for Dean, who last week led all of his opponents in the Zogby tracking poll of likely Iowa Democratic caucus-goers with as much as 28 percent support. Dean's support may also be falling in New Hampshire, site of the first presidential primary on Jan. 27.

Dean's lead over retired General Wesley Clark narrowed to 9 points this week from 23 points in December, according to a poll of 400 likely Democratic primary voters conducted for the Boston Globe and WBZ-TV. Dean has 32 percent support compared with Clark's 23 percent. The poll has a 5-point margin of error.

Kerry downplayed the results of today's Iowa poll on morning appearances on Cable News Network and Fox Television. ``Polls do not get people out to the polls,'' Kerry told Fox.

In a poll conducted by KCCI NewsChannel 8 in Des Moines, Dean has the support of 22 percent of Democratic caucus voters, down 7 percentage points from a KCCI poll taken a week earlier. Kerry polled 21 percent, and Gephardt and Edwards both had 18 percent. The poll of 607 Iowa Democrats who say they're likely to attend the caucus was conducted from Monday to Wednesday and has a 4-point margin of error.

Help on the Way

Dean's campaign has 2,000 volunteers from other states arriving in Iowa today to canvass 200,000 voters door-to-door over the weekend. The difference on caucus night Monday will be who has the best get-out-the vote organization, Trippi said in an interview on the campaign bus last night.

``We feel we have the strongest organization in the history of the caucus,'' Trippi said. The focus of the organization is getting caucus-goers ``out to vote,'' he said.

Kerry and Dean, who have both declined federal matching funds for their campaign and the spending limits that come with it, have been able to buy more advertisements and hire more staff than their rivals.

Kerry's surge in the Iowa polls has led to new campaign contributions, said Clay Constantinou, dean of Seton Hall University's School of Diplomacy and Kerry's New Jersey campaign co-chairman.

``I've already seen a terrific movement forward in fund- raising'' over the last 48 hours, said Constantinou, who has helped raise $1.5 million for Kerry. ``Now I'm getting calls every few minutes. We have a golden opportunity to bring in more and more people.''

Kerry trails Dean and Clark in New Hampshire, getting the support of 19 percent of the voters in the New Hampshire poll.

The telephone survey of 503 likely Iowa caucus voters was taken Tuesday to Thursday. The New Hampshire poll by KRC Communications Research was taken Monday to Wednesday.

Last Updated: January 16, 2004 12:09 EST