McClintock Camp’s Survey Shows 4-to-1 Lead

Flush with cash and confidence, Tom McClintock has released a public opinion survey that shows he has a 4-to-1 lead over his nearest Republican rival in the 38th Assembly District race.

In a survey of 250 Republican voters last Thursday, McClintock reported, 31% of “likely” Republican voters said they would vote for him over five other Republican candidates competing in the March 26 primary.

Although McClintock’s professional pollster called it a valid survey with a margin of error of plus or minus 6.2%, rival candidate Steve Frank suggested that McClintock skewed the results with leading questions that boosted his own attributes while running down his opponents.

“I could get the same results, maybe even better, if I prompted voters with positive statements about me and negative ones about everyone else,” said Frank, who has not commissioned a survey of his own.

Yet other candidates in the race begrudgingly acknowledged that McClintock’s poll seemed to be in line with others they have seen.

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McClintock took the unusual step of releasing the survey results because they were overwhelmingly favorable to his campaign to replace Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills). Under voter-imposed term limits, Boland can no longer hold the 38th District seat, which represents Fillmore, Simi Valley and parts of the Conejo, San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys.

McClintock’s campaign aides also sent the results to key Sacramento fund-raisers and political action committee lobbyists in an effort to dry up potential sources of money for his opponents.

“We wanted to save them the trouble of wasting their money,” said Wayne C. Johnson, a Sacramento-based consultant to McClintock’s campaign.

According to the tracking survey, McClintock’s closest competitor was Bob Larkin, a Simi Valley insurance agent and former chairman of the Ventura County Republican Party. Larkin garnered the support of 7.2% of those polled in the district. Robert C. Hamlin, a retired deputy sheriff who lives in Castaic, came in third with 5.2%.

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The three others vying for the Republican nomination were tied for last with 2% apiece. They were Frank, a Simi Valley-based government affairs consultant; Ross Hopkins, a Canoga Park businessman; and Peggy Freeman, the retired director of a health clinic in the Santa Clarita Valley.

“I’m not going to argue with his 4-to-1 edge,” said Hopkins, whose campaign has also surveyed voters. But he said his own poll showed a different order of Republicans lining up behind McClintock.

“Our poll showed us in a strong second place behind McClintock,” said Hopkins, who declined to share the specific results of his poll. “That’s why we think we have a very good shot at this.”

Larkin said McClintock’s survey results seem to match his understanding of the candidates’ popularity.

“I knew I was in first place until McClintock got in,” Larkin said. “It is not surprising that he has high name identification after just running for state controller and all of the ads he had on TV.”

Former Assembly candidate Scott Wilk said the results coincide with the numbers he saw before he quit the race. “That’s why I got out.”

Val R. Smith, a Republican pollster in Sacramento, defended the conclusions and methodology of the McClintock campaign’s tracking survey.

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McClintock’s 4-to-1 advantage over his nearest competitor was determined before the interviewers prompted voters with positive and negative statements about the candidates, Smith said.

After the questioners gave details about McClintock being a “taxpayer’s hero” and offered comments about Frank and Hopkins, McClintock’s support jumped to 48%, nearly 7-to-1 over his closest Republican competitor, he said.

“If I cook numbers for clients, I would be out of business,” said Smith, a Cal State Sacramento professor who said he conducted polls for 28 Republican candidates in 1994. “It is not in the best interest of a polling firm to give bad data.”

Smith conducted a similar survey in October at the behest of the Independent Business PAC, a wealthy, conservative interest group that urged McClintock to move back to Ventura County from Sacramento so he could jump into the race.

“Unquestionably, Tom McClintock has extended the sizable lead he enjoyed in the October survey,” Smith wrote in a memo to McClintock’s campaign consultant. “He has the momentum in this race.”