THE TIMES POLL : GOP Senate Candidates Having Trouble in O.C. : Slim leads for Seymour, Herschensohn make their chances against Feinstein and Boxer look doubtful.

Even in his home turf of Orange County, the most solidly Republican territory in California, GOP Sen. John Seymour is struggling to gain a big enough margin here to win election statewide, the Los Angeles Times Poll has found.

Seymour, a former mayor of Anaheim who also represented the area in the Assembly and then the state Senate for nine years, was leading Democrat Dianne Feinstein by 52% to 39% in the survey taken last weekend. But since 54% of the county’s voters are Republican and 34% are Democrat, Seymour’s support was falling just short of his party’s base.

In California’s other U.S. Senate race, Republican Bruce Herschensohn was leading Democrat Barbara Boxer by a slightly narrower margin, 49% to 41%.

Based on the patterns in past statewide races, the Republican candidates’ slim leads did not bode well for their chances statewide.

Republicans traditionally look to Orange County for a victory margin of 200,000 votes to offset Democratic surpluses in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. In 1990, when Pete Wilson narrowly beat Feinstein in the race for governor, he barely reached that 200,000-vote benchmark when he carried Orange County 64% to 31%.

On the other hand, Republican Ed Zschau carried Orange County 62% to 35% in the 1986 U.S. Senate race, when he narrowly lost statewide to Democrat Alan Cranston. Zschau had a margin of 106,000 votes in Orange County.

The Times poll contacted 1,067 Orange County registered voters. It has a sampling error of plus or minus four percentage points.

The poll also questioned voters about Proposition 165, a constitutional amendment on the November ballot regarding state financing and welfare. The measure, proposed by Wilson, would give the governor expanded powers to cut state expenditures. It would reduce welfare benefits by up to 25%, cap cost-of-living adjustments on welfare programs and limit welfare payments to new state residents.

In Orange County, the poll found that nearly three-quarters of the electorate is still unaware of the measure. When the proposition was described with arguments for and against the measure, 51% said they would vote for it while 42% opposed it.

In the Senate races, one recent public poll found that support for the candidates statewide was almost the reverse of Orange County’s results.

In the Field Poll, completed before the Republican National Convention on July 28, former San Francisco mayor Feinstein was leading Seymour 55% to 37%. Boxer, a Marin County congresswoman, was ahead of Herschensohn 49% to 31% statewide. The error margin of the Field Poll, conducted by Mervin Field, was also four percentage points.

In both the statewide survey and the Times poll of Orange County, there was no appreciable sign of a “gender gap” in the opinions of men and women voters.

Feinstein’s support from both sexes was statistically even with 38% from men and 40% from women. Seymour had 53% support from men and 50% from women.

The gender separation was also nearly invisible in the Boxer-Herschensohn race in Orange County. Boxer was supported by 42% of female voters and 39% of men while Herschensohn had 50% of the male vote and 48% from females.

Seymour’s 13-point lead and Herschensohn’s eight-point lead were similar. Even though the two candidates come from different segments of their own party, several questions in the poll indicate that voters do not see a sharp distinction between the races.

On the issue of abortion, for example, the two Republican candidates are on opposite sides, yet their support from voters on both sides of the issue is similar.

Seymour, in fact, made a major issue of his support for abortion rights at the recent Republican National Convention. Herschensohn is opposed to abortion rights. Yet Republican voters who said they support the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion favor both candidates almost equally, by a two-thirds margin.

Both Democratic candidates have succeeded in stealing the support of nearly a third of the non-conservative Republican vote. Feinstein is supported by 30% of Republicans who described themselves as liberal or moderate, compared to 35% for Boxer.

The Democratic success among these voters may be one of the key reasons why Seymour and Herschensohn are not doing better.

Independent voters are key to Republicans running in California because Democrats control a greater number of registered voters statewide. The independent voters in Orange County were leaning toward Boxer 43% to 37%. In the Feinstein-Seymour race, independent voters were evenly split.

President Bush was having a similar difficulty with the independent voters in Orange County, the poll found.

One in five Republicans said they would back Clinton in November, and more than half of those voters said they would also support Boxer. Feinstein was supported by a similar number of Clinton Republicans, while only two of five in this group backed Seymour.

Much of the heaviest campaigning is still to come in the Senate race, the candidates having spent much of the summer raising money for a coming barrage of television commercials. When the campaign gets cranked up, the poll of Orange County voters indicates, the races could still be volatile.

Part of the reason is that a sizable number of voters still don’t know much about the candidates.

Boxer was the least known, with more than a third of the respondents saying they did not have an opinion about her. And Seymour, despite more than a decade of public service in the Orange County, is still a mysterious figure to 26% of the voters in his home county.

About one voter in five could not judge Herschensohn, a former speech writer for President Richard Nixon and most recently a television news commentator in Los Angeles. Feinstein, probably because of her 1990 gubernatorial race against Wilson, was known to more than 90% of the voters.

All four candidates fell short of a 50% positive response on the question of whether voters have a favorable opinion of them.

Seymour had the most positive response with 49% saying they had a favorable opinion and just 25% saying they had an unfavorable opinion. In contrast, his opponent, Feinstein had the worst favorable-to-unfavorable ratio. Forty-five percent of the respondents said they had a favorable opinion while 46% had an unfavorable opinion.

In the other race, Boxer’s favorability rating was 36%, compared to 30% who had an unfavorable opinion. Herschensohn scored a 47% favorable and 31% unfavorable rating.

Senate Showdown

Both GOP candidates for the U.S. Senate have built small leads in Orange County.

As you may know, California will elect two U.S. senators this November. If the 1992 general election for U.S. Senate in California were being held today and the candidates for one of the seats were Democrat Barbara Boxer and Republican Bruce Herschensohn, for whom would you vote? Boxer: 41% Herschensohn: 49% Don’t know: 10% *

If the 1992 general election for U.S. Senate in California were held today and the candidates for the other Senate seat were Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Republican John Seymour, for whom would you vote? Feinstein: 39% Seymour: 52% Don’t know: 9% Source: Los Angeles Times Poll

Still Getting a Fix

Three of California’s four candidates for the U.S. Senate have yet to make an impression on sizable numbers of Orange County registered voters. Most, however, would like to see Republican candidates for the House of Representatives win in their districts.

What is your impression of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Bruce Herschensohn and John Seymour? Or haven’t you heard enough to say?

Boxer Feinstein Herschensohn Seymour Favorable 36% 45% 47% 49% Unfavorable 30% 46% 31% 25% Don’t know 34% 9% 22% 26%

*

If the elections for Congress were held today, which party would you like to see win in this congressional district? Democrats: 36% Republicans: 56% Don’t know: 8% Source: Los Angeles Times Poll

How the Poll Was Conducted

The Times Poll interviewed 1,067 Orange County registered voters, by telephone, Aug. 22 and 23. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the county. Random-digit dialing techniques were used to ensure that both listed and unlisted numbers had an opportunity to be contacted. Results were weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education and household size. The margin of sampling error for the total sample is plus or minus 4 percentage points. For certain subgroups, the error margin is somewhat higher. Poll results can also be affected by other factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented.