ELECTIONS ’92 : California Perot Votes Appear to Shift to Clinton : Polls: Jilted backers mostly listed the Arkansan as second choice, and new surveys confirm a boost. But Bush could benefit as convention fever fades.

Democrat Bill Clinton will benefit most immediately in California by the withdrawal of independent Ross Perot from the presidential campaign, but President Bush has renewed prospects as well, political analysts said Friday.

Voter surveys taken before the announcement by Perot that he was withdrawing from the race found that Clinton most frequently was the second choice of those supporting the independent candidate, and polls by news organizations since the announcement on Thursday are bearing that out.

But Republicans and other analysts believe that much of the Democrat’s strength in recent polls reflects the stream of favorable publicity generated from the Democratic National Convention.

In California, GOP analysts believe that once the excitement over Clinton’s nomination dies down, the state will be up for grabs. That’s a more optimistic assessment than they had before Perot’s decision to back out of the race, when many believed Bush was in danger of losing California, despite its history of voting in favor of Republican candidates in every presidential race since 1964.

The prize in California is the state’s 54 electoral votes, the largest single block in the nation. Both campaigns regard California as crucial to winning the presidency.

Steven A. Merksamer, a Sacramento attorney and longtime Republican strategist, said: “I think Perot was clearly winning in California. It was the one state where he had a strong natural appeal. A lot of that support was coming from Bush. It showed up in independent polls and in polls by both parties.”

With Perot out, Merksamer said he thinks California now “is up for grabs.”

“I don’t think that support naturally is going back to the President,” he said, so Bush will have to win it back. “A lot will depend on what kind of campaign the President wages, and what kind of campaign Clinton wages.”

Another Republican, Jeff Weir, an aide to Republican U.S. Sen. John Seymour, said: “I believe it’s a horse race now. It’s still George Bush’s race to win or lose. If George Bush gives the disenchanted voters a reason to come home, I think they’ll flock back.”

Instant polling seems to be answering the big question that followed Perot’s announcement, which was: Where will Perot voters go?

Cable News Network released a poll Thursday showing Clinton with a 23-point lead over Bush, with a margin of error of five percentage points. An ABC News Poll, also taken after Perot’s decision to withdraw, gave Clinton a 2-to-1 lead over Bush.

Bill Zimmerman of Los Angeles, a veteran manager of national and state political campaigns, said Perot’s decision to withdraw has helped Clinton in California “enormously.”

Zimmerman said Clinton had helped his campaign by choosing as his running mate Sen. Al Gore, which gave the ticket both a youthful look and a strong environmental appeal, two pluses in California.

As for Perot supporters still disenchanted with the major party candidates, Zimmerman said many may stay home, but of those who vote, he predicted they will see Clinton as the candidate best reflecting change. “It doesn’t make sense that voters who have been demanding change will now suddenly slip back and support the candidate of the status quo,” he said.

But Bruce Cain, director of UC Berkeley’s Institute of Government Studies, said he believes Republicans will benefit the most by Perot’s decision to bail out.

“Those poll results are very much skewed by the passion of the moment and the enthusiasm generated by the convention. Once the excitement dies down, I think Republicans will be the big beneficiaries because this makes it a two-way race and that is something they are very familiar with. They’ll be able to paint Clinton as a liberal, a big spender. It will be a very negative campaign, hitting on the formulas that have worked for them in the past,” Cain said.

Feeling betrayed and angry in the aftermath of Perot’s departure, many Perot supporters were in no mood to discuss possible support for another candidate.

Voting for Bush did not seem to be an option for many among the scores of the mostly white, mostly male Perot supporters milling about the Texan’s Los Angeles County headquarters in Sherman Oaks on Thursday. A handful said they would vote for Clinton, but most said that if they couldn’t vote for Perot, they did not intend to vote at all.

In Orange County, it was much the same thing. Sheida Hodge, 47, of Irvine, a registered Democrat, said if she couldn’t vote for Perot, she would sit out the election. “I’m not going to vote for Clinton or Bush, that’s for sure.”

Mervin Field, director of the California Poll, said his surveys of Perot supporters showed that the Texan had taken large numbers of voters away from Bush. “I’m sure the Bush campaign people are giving each other high fives and saying, ‘Thank God, we don’t have to fight a two-front war.’ ”

On the other hand, Field notes that polls show Bush is unpopular with voters, and he said that any incumbent President, even a popular one, would have trouble winning reelection, given the “horrible” state of the economy.