US: Senator John Kerry has a 60 per cent to 19 per cent lead in California over his closest Democratic rival, North Carolina Senator John Edwards, according to an opinion poll, and is also comfortably ahead of President George Bush, should he be the Democratic Party candidate.
California, the most populous US state, holds its presidential primary next week, one of 10 states taking part in so-called "Super Tuesday". It and New York, also part of "Super Tuesday", are likely to decide whether Mr Kerry has sufficient support to knock Senator Edwards out of the race. A field poll of 958 registered voters also found that 53 per cent of California voters would back Sen Kerry in a match-up against President Bush, with 41 per cent backing the incumbent.
Mr Bush's approval rating in the state had sunk to 43 per cent, down from 52 per cent a month ago and the lowest level since before the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon.
"Over the past month Californians' assessment of the job performance rating of Republican President George W Bush has declined markedly," pollsters Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field wrote. "The president's decline in positive assessments is most pronounced among Democrats."
A Los Angeles Times poll published on Tuesday found Mr Kerry leading Mr Edwards 56 per cent to 24 per cent.
Campaigning yesterday in Ohio, Senator Kerry blamed President Bush's policies for funnelling American jobs overseas and proposed to discourage the practice by requiring US companies to give advance notice of plans to send work abroad.
In a speech prepared for delivery at the University of Toledo, Mr Kerry said he could not promise that "all the rivers of steel will flow again" but offered a number of ideas for stemming the tide of job losses.
"I'm not going to pledge the impossible," Mr Kerry told workers at AK-ISG Steel in Cleveland. "But I can fight to make sure you've got a level playing field."
The four-term Massachusetts senator and Democratic front-runner accused the Bush administration of being unwilling to enforce trade provisions and failing to create jobs in the US.
Mr Kerry blasted Mr Bush's economic policies and called the president "a walking contradiction" who promised his tax cuts would create four million jobs and had, instead, lost three million. "I think when you're 7 million jobs in the hole, step number one is pretty simple: stop digging," he said in his prepared remarks.
North Carolina Senator John Edwards, Kerry's major rival in the race to see who will challenge Bush on November 2nd, has based his campaign on the outsourcing and the loss of jobs under trade pacts like the North American Free Trade Agreement between the US, Canada and Mexico.
Both Democrats have lavished attention on Ohio and other "Super Tuesday" states that have suffered big job losses.
The winner of 18 out of 20 Democratic primaries and caucuses so far, Mr Kerry is the clear leader in money and momentum and has a chance next week of closing in on the 2,162 delegates needed to win the Democratic nomination.
But Mr Edwards has mounted an all-out effort to cut into Mr Kerry's lead after his close second in Wisconsin.