THE TIMES POLL : Bergeson and Seymour Battle Still a Tossup

Even among the voters who best know Orange County state Sens. John Seymour and Marian Bergeson, their race to be the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor is nearly a tie, with a third of them still undecided, according to the Times Orange County Poll.

Seymour led Bergeson by a slim five points (36% to 31%) among all Orange County Republican voters. But Bergeson was narrowly ahead among those considered the most likely to vote in the June 5 primary. The poll found 33% of the GOP voters to be undecided.

“The most important aspect of the lieutenant governor’s race is that there is a very large group of undecided voters, even in Orange County, where these candidates are most known,” said Mark Baldassare, director of the poll. “I just don’t think these candidates have sufficiently differentiated themselves to the voters, even at home.”

The poll also found good news in Orange County for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dianne Feinstein. She had a solid 14-point lead over her primary opponent, John K. Van de Kamp, among the county’s Democratic voters.

“Dianne Feinstein has really positioned herself as a strong candidate among the moderate to conservative Democrats who dominate in Orange County,” Baldassare said. “And she is no longer a regional candidate.”

The margins separating the candidates in the Orange County survey were similar to a statewide Times Poll published Saturday and conducted by Times Poll director I.A. Lewis.

In that survey, Feinstein led Van de Kamp by 11 points, with 35% still undecided. In the Republican primary for lieutenant governor, Seymour had a slight edge over Bergeson, 17%-13%, but a huge 70% of Republican voters were still undecided between the candidates. That poll had a margin of error of five points in either direction.

The Times Orange County Poll, conducted by Mark Baldassare & Associates, has an error margin of plus or minus seven points for the Democratic voters survey and six points for the Republicans.

The telephone survey contacted 600 registered voters over three nights ending Wednesday. It included a subsample of 212 Democratic voters and 328 Republicans.

The lieutenant governor candidates have been hampered by a lack of attention to their race as reflected in the large number of undecided voters. But the campaigns have also had difficulty distinguishing their candidates because the two senators have substantially similar voting records.

The major difference between the two has been on the issue of abortion. Seymour switched his position last year so that he now supports abortion rights and public funding for low-income women seeking abortions. Bergeson is against abortion rights laws.

The issue may explain why the two candidates received almost identical support from women voters while Seymour led among men.

“In some ways, the candidates have balanced out each other’s strengths and weaknesses in terms of the gender differences,” Baldassare said. “Marian Bergeson has not come out particularly as a woman’s candidate and Seymour has been able to attract some of the women’s vote through his stand of pro-choice on abortion.”

The poll also indicated that much of the candidates’ support in Orange County comes from the voters who know them best. Bergeson is heavily favored (47%-23%) in the area of her 37th Senate District in South County, while Seymour is ahead (42%-23%) in the area of his 35th Senate District to the north.

Familiarity with the candidate was the key factor cited by some of the respondents.

Lula Key, a retired waitress in Anaheim, said she supports Seymour “because we know him.”

“He’s a nice guy,” she said. “He was mayor of Anaheim, and he did a pretty good job.”

On the other hand, in Bergeson’s territory, Carol Fetty said she is supporting the Newport Beach senator because of her service in the district.

“She has an excellent reputation in the area,” said Fetty, a public relations director from Huntington Beach.

Fetty added that she has seen some of Seymour’s TV commercials, but “it’s like voting for a known entity against one that you don’t know.”

Unlike Bergeson, Fetty said she supports abortion rights laws but “that’s an issue where we are never going to have a meeting of the minds, and consequently, I don’t feel I should vote on that single issue.”

Seymour also led among voters with household incomes of less than $50,000 per year (40%-28%) while the two were almost even among upper-income families.

The good news for Feinstein was that her support spanned almost every category of voter and held steady among those considered most likely to vote. Among all Democratic voters in the county, she led 49% to 35% with 15% undecided.

Although Orange County is dominated by Republican officeholders and politics, it is also home to nearly 400,000 Democrats, one of the largest Democratic counties in the state.

Feinstein’s countywide 14-point lead was consistent among older and younger voters and all parts of the county. It increased among upper-income voters (55% to 35%), although she also led among households with annual incomes of less than $50,000.

The former San Francisco mayor also had nearly a 2-1 lead over Van de Kamp among women voters and was even with him among men.

The poll results also indicate that Van de Kamp, the state attorney general, is having trouble appealing to the county’s swing Democrats who have a tendency to vote Republican, Baldassare said. He said it could be a problem for Van de Kamp should he win the nomination and face Republican Pete Wilson in the November general election.

“Many of them have gone for the more outside-of-the-party candidate--Dianne Feinstein,” Baldassare said. “The advantage of being more of an insider in Sacramento and having Southern California as a home base does not help (Van de Kamp) in Orange County.”

The Times Orange County Poll Governor If the Democratic primary election for Governor were held today, who would you vote for? Other: 1% Don’t know: 15% Van de Kamp: 35% Feinstein: 49% How They Voted

Men Women Van de Kamp 43% 28 Feinstein 43 53 Other 1 - Don’t know 13 19

Lieutenant Governor If the Republican primary election for Lieutenant Governor were held today, who would you vote for? Don’t know: 33% Bergeson: 31% Seymour: 36% How They Voted

Men Women Bergeson 32% 30% Seymour 43 28 Don’t know 25 42

Note: The Times Orange County Poll of 600 registered voters was conducted May 21-23 using a random sample of telephone numbers. The margin of error for a sample of this size is + or -4 percent. Source: Times Orange County Poll