Howard Dean continues to funnel time and resources into Wisconsin in an attempt to capture voters here, saying in a Monday conference call with Wisconsin reporters that he intends to campaign extensively over the entire state before the Feb. 17 primary.

Dean said the Wisconsin election is “absolutely key” because it is not only the sole primary Feb. 17, it also works as a “midway check” for candidates before the barrage of Super Tuesday contests March 2.

When asked whether he might consider pulling out if he fails to win prior to Wisconsin, Dean said he intends to stay in the race for the long haul. He claimed polls showing his popularity continuing to slip behind Kerry would not affect his campaign plans.

“Polls don’t elect people, voters do,” Dean said. “I’m in this until someone locks up the nomination.”

After recently shaking up his campaign by replacing the campaign manager with a former Al Gore aide, Dean adopted a new strategy that includes skipping the next week of primaries in order both to lie low as other Democratic contenders are eliminated and to save resources. The former Vermont governor plans to campaign heavily in the Feb. 7 and 8 races before gearing up to challenge Kerry in a head-to-head battle in Wisconsin. Dean visited Milwaukee Sunday to meet with local African American leaders and attend church services on the city’s north side.

Dean felt confident he could win in Wisconsin due to endorsements from important state figures like state Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager and Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, as well as his record of delivering on what he claims matters most to Wisconsinites: jobs, small-business investment, health care and education.

Dean’s focus on Wisconsin arises out of an urgent need to win a state soon and recapture a sense of “electability” among Democratic voters, according to University of Wisconsin assistant political science professor Katherine Cramer Walsh. Many believe Dean’s abrupt slip from frontrunner in the first two contests may still sabotage any extra efforts he exerts to win in Wisconsin.

“The campaign is still pretty volatile, but it seems that the Kerry bandwagon is growing here and around the country,” Walsh said.

The former Vermont governor took several shots at Democratic primary frontrunner Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., during the conference call, claiming Kerry’s heavy reliance on special-interest donations for his campaign erases any important differences between Republicans and Democrats in American politics.

Pointing to Kerry’s record on health care as less persuasive than his own, Dean said, “I don’t think Sen. Kerry is the one to take on the president this fall because he doesn’t make the case.”

Dean claimed that while he has governed a state with a comprehensive health-care plan, Kerry has backed 11 failed health bills.

Dean also turned some of his criticisms on Bush’s new budget proposal, declaring it a “disgrace” and saying that President Bush must be replaced so the country can “have the same taxes we had when Bill Clinton was president, so we can have the same economy we had when Bill Clinton was president.”

“[I]f people were running their households the way Bush is running the country, they’d be bankrupt by now,” Dean said.