THE TIMES ORANGE COUNTY POLL : Crucial GOP Region Shows Bush, Clinton in Dead Heat

Halfway between the Republican National Convention and Election Day, President Bush still is locked in a dead heat with Democrat Bill Clinton among Orange County voters, who are crucial to the Republican Party, according to a new Times Orange County Poll.

The three-day survey, concluded Sunday, found Clinton with 42% of the vote in Orange County compared to 41% for Bush, a difference within the survey’s margin of error. The results are virtually unchanged from a Times Poll in Orange County almost a month ago, despite a stepped-up campaign by Bush which included a visit to Anaheim with former President Ronald Reagan two weeks ago.

The poll also indicated the outcome would not be altered if prospective independent candidate Ross Perot enters the race.

Perot would win about one in five Orange County votes, the poll shows--a stronger showing than recent national surveys have found. But his support is drawn almost equally from the two major candidates and it is not enough to make him a contender in Orange County.

In a three-way race, Clinton was favored by 35% of the Orange County electorate compared to 33% for Bush and 22% for Perot--still a dead heat between Clinton and Bush.

The Times Orange County Poll, conducted by Mark Baldassare & Associates, contacted 600 registered voters by telephone during the weekend. It has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The error rate is higher for subgroups, such as those most likely to vote.

Orange County is California’s greatest Republican stronghold and the place where GOP candidates turn for large winning margins to offset the state’s Democratic bases in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. As a result, it would be almost impossible for Bush to win in California if he merely ties Clinton in Orange County.

In 1988, when Bush beat Democrat Michael S. Dukakis in California by slightly more than 3 percentage points, he won 68% of the vote in Orange County. But the survey showed just how much different this election is for Bush: Only 58% of those who voted for him in 1988 said they would do so again in November.

At the same time, Clinton won the support of nearly a quarter of the Orange County voters who backed Bush in 1988 and he hung on to almost all of the county’s Dukakis voters.

Nationwide, Clinton has held a double-digit lead in polls for several weeks, and in California, a recent Times Poll showed him ahead by 21 points. With such sagging support for the President and just five weeks left in the campaign, some Bush strategists say the President could only be helped if Perot joined the race and shook up the electorate.

With Perot in the race, only half of Orange County’s Republicans said they would vote for the President. A quarter of them would vote for Perot, and 17% would choose Clinton.

Even in a two-way race with Clinton, Bush was favored by just 60% of the county’s Republican voters, while 22% said they would vote Democratic.

The dynamics of the race also did not change significantly when the survey focused on the voters who said they were most likely to vote.

The support for Clinton and Bush was virtually unchanged among these voters in a two-way or three-way race. Perot’s support, however, dropped from 22% among all registered voters to 18% among those most likely to cast a ballot.

Just 10% of the electorate in Orange County is still undecided about the race, the poll found.

On the issues, Orange County voters ranked jobs and the economy far and away the most important issue in the presidential race.

About 60% of those surveyed said the economy is “the most important issue . . . in deciding who to vote for in this presidential election.” Education was second at 12%.

Orange County voters split evenly on which candidate would do a better job promoting economic prosperity. But among the 60% who said the economy was the top issue, 46% favored Clinton, 36% Bush.