Washington ? A recent Democracy Corps poll of likely participants in the Democratic contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina goes a long way toward dispelling some of the myths that have built up about the race to choose a challenger to President Bush.

As is the case with almost every survey, the early October sampling by the Democratic polling firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean a breakaway winner in New Hampshire, leading with 38 percent to 21 percent for Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and 11 percent for retired Gen. Wesley Clark, with the others all in single digits.

By contrast, Dean was essentially tied with Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri among prospective Iowa caucus-goers, and the South Carolina poll found six candidates — Gephardt, Clark and Dean, plus Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut and New York civil rights activist Al Sharpton — all within 4 points of each other. Kerry was just a shade further back in what is still an unformed race.

Since Dean has emphasized his early opposition to the war in Iraq as his calling card in the race, it is easy to assume that his antiwar stand and his criticism of Lieberman, Gephardt, Kerry and Edwards for supporting the resolution authorizing the use of force must account for his strong showing — especially in New Hampshire.

Wrong. When the Democracy Corps team asked whether voters in those three states wanted a Democratic nominee “who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning” or one “who supported military action against Saddam Hussein but was critical of Bush for failing to win international support for the war,” voters in all three states chose the second alternative. Dean’s position was preferred by only 35 percent of the likely voters in the New Hampshire Democratic primary — fewer than supported it in Iowa or South Carolina — while 58 percent chose the alternative.

That should not come as a surprise. New Hampshire is not a pacifist state. In 1968, when anti-Vietnam War candidate Eugene McCarthy ran so well against President Johnson that LBJ soon announced he would not seek another term, a post-primary poll found that many of McCarthy’s supporters favored more vigorous prosecution of the war in hopes of bringing it to an early end.

In 1972, antiwar candidate George McGovern surprised Ed Muskie by the size of his vote — but Muskie, who had equivocated on the war, still won.

Even with all the new residents who have moved into southern New Hampshire from Massachusetts in hopes of finding high-tech jobs and low taxes, the state is pro-military and pro-defense. Remember the way its independents, many of whom voted in the Republican primary in 2000 and will switch to the Democratic contest this time, embraced war hero John McCain.

The fact that Democratic primary voters in New Hampshire are not reflexively opposed to our involvement in Iraq is underlined by the poll finding that by a margin of 54 percent to 38 percent, they favor a nominee who “reluctantly supports” Bush’s $87 billion aid request over one who opposes it — while Iowa and South Carolina voters lean slightly the other way.

If it’s not his early antiwar stand that is powering Dean, what explains his lead in the Jan. 27 first-in-the-nation primary? The Democracy Corps poll strongly suggests it is because the New Hampshire primary electorate — including many of those independents — is overwhelmingly liberal on social issues where Dean has identified himself. By a margin of 76 percent to 18 percent, they favor civil unions giving homosexual couples the same legal rights as married couples. Dean signed the first such law as governor of Vermont. Two-thirds of those likely to vote in New Hampshire also approve of gay marriage.

In this respect, they are very different from the blue-collar caucus-goers in Iowa, many of them union members, who will vote eight days earlier on Jan. 19, and even more at odds with the voters in South Carolina, probably the most publicized of the round of primaries on Feb. 3 and the first place where African-Americans in large numbers will weigh in the balance. Support for civil unions is 20 points lower in Iowa, at 56 percent to 35 percent. In South Carolina, prospective Democratic primary voters oppose civil unions, 52 percent to 36 percent.

Other elements also make New Hampshire different. Its voters are far less responsive to populist, anti-corporate appeals, far more critical of Democrats in Congress and far more interested in finding someone who can appeal to independents and thereby improve the chances of beating Bush than the voters in the other two states.

In short, it is cultural forces — far more than anything else — that explain Dean’s appeal in New Hampshire, forces that may tug the other way when the race moves to more typical battleground states.