Clinton Edges Dole in O.C. Poll

Sen. Bob Dole, who became the favorite to win the GOP presidential nomination with a primary sweep Tuesday, is in a virtual dead heat with President Clinton in Orange County, the storied heart of California Republicanism.

According to a new Times Orange County poll, Clinton leads the Kansas senator in Orange County by a margin of 46% to 44% on the strength of support from most of the county’s Democrats, nearly half its independents and a quarter of its GOP voters.

The poll, a dose of harsh reality in a week of extraordinarily positive results for Dole, spelled even more sobering news for other Republican presidential candidates.

In head-to-head races, Clinton would defeat Steve Forbes by five points and Pat Buchanan by 22 in Orange County, the survey showed. Against former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, who quit the race Wednesday, Clinton would win by a 49% to 35% margin, the poll shows.

Rep. Robert K. Dornan, the Garden Grove Republican who is making a quixotic run for the Republican presidential nomination, would receive 1% of the vote from his home county in a Republican primary, according to the poll.

“Dole is clearly the strongest among what is basically a weak group of [Republican] candidates right now, but he has a long, long way to go,” said Mark Baldassare, a UC Irvine professor who conducted the poll for The Times.

“He’s the front-runner, but he cannot take even Republican Orange County for granted in this election.”

California, which has more electoral votes than any other state, is key to the presidential aspirations of any candidate. To capture the state in November, a Republican generally must win by at least a 2-1 margin in Orange County to balance the Democratic turnout in other parts of California.

“For a Republican candidate to win in this state, which has a higher Democratic than Republican registration, it’s critical to win big in Orange County,” Baldassare said. “I think these results will be very sobering for the Dole campaign, and even more so for the others.”

Dole’s status as the front-runner for the Republican nomination was cemented Tuesday with his eight primary victories, then capped with the withdrawals Wednesday of Alexander and Sen. Richard G. Lugar of Indiana.

But the poll results show that Orange County’s normally loyal Republican voters may be feeling fickle this election year.

Sheila Marcus, a grant writer from Fountain Valley and a former Ocean View School District board member, is one Republican who is planning to vote for Clinton in the general election.

“I would vote for Clinton because I think he has matured in the position and has been able to demonstrate some leadership I could admire,” she said. “Plus he has been expressing viewpoints that are more in line with Middle America.”

The telephone survey of 600 registered Orange County voters was conducted March 1-4.

For Clinton, the survey contained mostly good news. Overall, it found voters in the county in a surprisingly favorable mood about both the Democratic president and the direction the country is headed under his leadership.

Orange County voters give Clinton generally better job ratings than they gave George Bush four years ago. Three in 10 say they believe he is doing an excellent or good job of handling the economy and creating jobs; the same number give him positive ratings for his handling of the federal budget and tax issues.

Half of Orange County voters say they have a favorable opinion of the president, a 10-point increase from his ratings in a Times Orange County poll in October 1992, just before the last presidential election.

Dole is comfortably ahead of his rivals here as the March 26 Republican primary approaches. Orange County GOP voters give him 30% of the vote, to 18% for Forbes, 16% for Buchanan and 3% for Alexander. Three in 10 are still undecided. The margin narrows slightly among those Republicans considered most likely to vote.

“I think Dole has a more moderate view [among Republican candidates],” Marcus said. “I studied the flat tax and that’s not the answer. Forbes doesn’t have that experience to be an effective leader; regardless of how noble his ideas are, he doesn’t have the experience.”

Buchanan’s politics, Marcus said, are too extreme.

“He follows a rather extreme view and I don’t know if there’s an issue I agree with him on,” she said.

Half the voters polled say the country is seriously on the wrong track, down from two-thirds in October 1992. Four in 10 say the country is headed in the right direction.

Clinton, as the incumbent president, benefits from a general public perception that the economy is on the upswing, Baldassare said.

On issues affecting the Republican presidential primary, Orange County voters appeared to turn a cold shoulder to Buchanan’s isolationist leanings and campaign trail attacks on U.S. free trade agreements.

Nearly seven in 10 poll respondents said they favor free trade accords, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement among the United States, Mexico and Canada. And nearly nine in 10 said the United States should be active in world affairs.

Times staff writer David Reyes contributed to this report.

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How the Poll Was Conducted

The Times Orange County poll was conducted by Mark Baldassare & Associates. The telephone survey of 600 Orange County registered voters was conducted March 1-4 on weekday nights and weekend days. The margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 4 percentage points. The margin of error for likely voters in the March primary is plus or minus 6%.