Poll Finds Gap Closing; Wilson, Brown Nearly Even

Heading toward the final rounds, the battle for California’s governorship is about what many political experts had long expected it to be at this point: a real horse race between Republican Gov. Pete Wilson and Democratic challenger Kathleen Brown.

In the first independent statewide poll since the June primary, the Field Poll published Wednesday showed Brown, the state treasurer, leading Wilson 44% to 39%, with 17% undecided. The 5-point lead is within the poll’s statistical margin of error of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

The poll shows that over the past 14 months, Wilson has doggedly fought back from the brink of political perdition to within a statistical whisper of Brown. At the same time, Brown, running a sometimes uncertain campaign, has seen the glitter fade from a 23-point lead.

Both campaigns found reason for happiness in the latest poll--for Brown it was her continuing lead, and for Wilson it was the long-term direction of polling numbers.

But officials with both campaigns and other political experts said the tightening of the race is something they have long expected. Much of the early polling spread rested on a combination of Wilson’s unpopularity and Brown’s name recognition.

All candidates’ poll numbers drop as potential voters get to know more about them--and this has happened to Brown. Meanwhile, Wilson has been helped by rising voter optimism about the state’s economic outlook.

Brown led by 8 points in the Field Poll last May--before the June 8 primary election--and the difference from that poll is marginal, not a sign of a dramatic shift in the contest, Los Angeles Times Poll Director John Brennan said.

Each candidate’s negative ratings had increased since May, an indication that the candidates’ ads attacking each other were having an impact, although Wilson aides said they were not running any anti-Brown ads during the polling period, July 12-17. Brown was running anti-Wilson commercials during the period.

Field Poll founder Mervin Field said the poll of 608 registered voters indicates that at this point, “people are voting no on Wilson, but not yet voting yes on Brown.”

Noting that “polls cannot forecast the outcome,” Brennan said: “This is a very competitive race and it’s certainly far too early to start betting your farm on either one of these candidates.”

Last year, Wilson, 60, was suffering the worst job approval rating, as measured by the polls, of any governor in modern California history. Experts were beginning to write his political memorial.

Brown, 48, was regarded as the glamorous new star on the California political horizon, or even the national political scene. The telegenic mother and grandmother is the daughter and sister of former California governors, and the idea of a Brown dynasty caught the fancy of national magazines and television, who celebrated her as an almost certain winner. She became one of the state’s most successful political fund-raisers.

At that time, Brown led Wilson by 23 points in the Field Poll.

Today, the scenario has become quite different. Wilson has rebounded, although his job ratings are still quite low. Private polls taken by various campaigns in recent weeks have shown Wilson overcoming Brown’s lead.

Wilson’s political obituaries were set aside and campaign handicappers have begun talking about him as a potential 1996 GOP presidential nominee if he wins reelection in 1994.

Although Wilson has campaigned strongly since last year, the Brown campaign has at times been tentative and uncertain. Critics, including some of her friends, said Brown did not seem to know just what it was she wanted to do as governor, other than to return the state to some of the glory it had under her father, Edmund G. (Pat) Brown Sr.

Brown’s poll figures against Wilson have continued to decline, even after she easily won her June 8 primary election over Insurance Commissioner John Garamendi and state Sen. Tom Hayden.

What happened?

To a great extent, the campaign has followed a normal and predictable course.

No candidate could be expected to maintain a 23-point lead through a tough primary in which she was attacked by opponents within her own party as well as by Wilson.

Experts said Brown’s early lead was based to a great degree on people’s association with the Brown name in California politics and her image as an attractive newcomer to big-time California politics. It is normal for candidates’ negative image ratings to increase as prospective voters learn more about them.

Wilson’s comeback was helped by the fact that he became a very visible and active governor over the last year, especially during last fall’s disastrous brush fires, in the aftermath of the Jan. 17 Northridge earthquake and at a string of funerals and memorials for crime victims and slain police officers.

Perhaps most important, Brennan said, Wilson enjoyed a surge of popularity this spring on the basis of perceptions that the California economy is rebounding. The “landscape of optimism and pessimism” can be an important factor in the election, he said.

Brown’s performance Monday before a statewide meeting of broadcasters in Monterey may be a sign that she has hit her stride as a candidate with the primary over and the race--as she put it--” mano a mano “ between Wilson and her.

“I feel liberated,” she told reporters after laying out in concise, vigorous fashion the alleged failings of the Wilson Administration.

At the same meeting, Wilson said that things were beginning to work in California and he honed his attack on Brown by portraying her as a liberal Democrat who is not in sync with voters on the crime issue, especially the death penalty.

The Brown campaign said it is trying to reinforce in voters’ minds the fact that Wilson has been a bad governor, and why. Then, campaign manager Clint Reilly said, Brown will outline her own programs in an effort to convince voters that they should take a chance on change.

Dan Schnur, the Wilson campaign’s communications director, concurred that Brown must do more than convince voters that Wilson has been a bad governor.

Quoting Republican humorist P. J. O’Rourke, Schnur said: “If you want the tooth fairy to come, you’ve got to put something under the pillow.”

Reilly argued Wednesday that the latest public and private polls indicate that the momentum of the race has changed again in Brown’s favor even before that phase of the campaign has begun.

“The momentum has shifted back toward Brown as people begin to refocus on Wilson and his record,” he said.