Times poll shows Clinton and Obama beating McCain

washington – Although Democrats are still tangled in a fractious presidential primary, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama would probably beat presumptive GOP nominee John McCain if the election were held now, according to a Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll released today.

McCain remains competitive, but the poll identified one important vulnerability: Voters ranked him lowest among the three candidates on who could best handle the nation’s economic problems, by far the most pressing concern for the public irrespective of party, gender or income.

Of the three main candidates, Clinton inspired the most confidence on the economy, even though she appears unlikely to win the Democratic nomination.

In a hypothetical matchup between Clinton and McCain, the New York senator led the Arizonan by 47% to 38%, with 11% saying they were undecided.

And in a contest between Obama and McCain, the poll gave the Illinois senator a 46% to 40% lead over the Republican, with 9% undecided. The nationwide poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The results represent a slight shift from a Times/Bloomberg poll in February, in which McCain led Clinton by 6 points, and Obama by 2 points, within the poll’s margin of error. The direction has now changed in favor of the Democrats.

“Although there is such infighting now between the two Democratic candidates, we are finding that both Democrats are beating McCain, and this could be attributed to the weakening of the economy,” said Times polling director Susan Pinkus, who supervised the survey.

For example, among the 78% of voters who said they believe the economy has slid into a recession, 52% would vote for Obama, compared with 32% for McCain. A matchup between Clinton and McCain showed nearly identical results.

The poll was based on telephone interviews with 2,208 adults nationwide – 1,986 of them registered voters – from May 1 to 8. That time period included several days before and after the recent Democratic primaries in Indiana and North Carolina, which Clinton and Obama split.

The poll offered fresh insights for Democrats trying to discern whether Obama or Clinton would best represent their party in the fall against McCain.

For example, Clinton and McCain were essentially tied among voters ages 65 or older. But if the race were between Obama and McCain, the Republican would lead, 47% to 41%.

Among people ages 18 to 44, Obama led McCain by 55% to 35%.

Clinton generated less enthusiasm with this age group, leading McCain by 48% to 35%.

African Americans would vote overwhelmingly for Obama, the first black candidate with a realistic chance of becoming president. In the poll, he carried 79% of African Americans, with 3% supporting McCain.

If Clinton were the Democratic nominee, however, McCain’s share of the African American vote would rise to 9%, roughly in line with the performance of past GOP presidential candidates. Clinton had 60% of the African American vote, with 23% of respondents in this cornerstone Democratic constituency saying they would be undecided.

Among baby boomers, the giant post World War II generation that will begin to reach retirement age in the next president’s term, both Democrats edged McCain, with Clinton leading, 47% to 39%, and Obama by 45% to 37%. Whoever is elected will have to deal with the serious financial shortfalls facing Medicare and Social Security.

McCain remains competitive, however, because of his showing among older voters and independents, constituencies that both parties are vying to win. McCain leads Clinton among independents and is essentially tied with Obama.

Beyond divisions of race, gender, politics or income, the poll found that voters’ dominant concern is the precarious state of the nation’s economy. Although recent government data showed that the economy continued grow from January through March, many experts believe it was running on fumes and may well be shrinking in the current calendar quarter.

A clear majority of voters, 56%, said the economy should be the top priority for the presidential candidates to address.

That was far larger than the 34% who cited the war in Iraq as the top priority. Healthcare and illegal immigration were the only other issues to break double digits, with 11% apiece.

Nearly 8 out of 10 voters said they believed the economy is in a recession, defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, and only about one-fourth said they thought the downturn would be mild. Nearly a quarter said the recession would be serious.

The gloom was evident in answers to one of the basic questions that pollsters ask: whether the country is headed in the right direction or has gotten on the wrong track.

Seventy-seven percent of voters agreed that things are “seriously off on the wrong track.”

Liberals were most likely to agree with this assessment – 90% did so – but so did 62% of conservatives. Among independents, 82% said the country was off course.

Republicans were the least likely to hold a pessimistic view. But even among that group, 50% said the country is going in the wrong direction.

Overall, only 15% of voters believe things are going well.

“The right direction/wrong track question sets the stage for the pessimistic and gloomy view about the economy,” Pinkus said. “The last time we had ‘wrong track’ in the 70% range was back in 1992.” That was the year when then-Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton won the Democratic presidential nomination and went on to defeat the incumbent president, George H.W. Bush, on the heels of a recession that lasted from 1990 to 1991.

Regardless of their choice for president, voters judged Hillary Clinton to be the most capable of the three candidates when it comes to dealing with economic problems. She garnered 32%, compared with 26% for Obama and 23% for McCain.

“This is an issue that McCain really has to work on to turn people’s attitudes around,” Pinkus said. “This is an issue that is a positive for Democrats, and that may explain why they are doing better – even though they are still fighting each other and McCain is getting a free ride.”

ricardo.alonso-zaldivar@latimes.com