Poll Shows Clinton, Dole Tied in Orange County

President Clinton and Republican challenger Bob Dole are running even in Orange County, according to the Times Orange County poll, a bleak omen for the GOP drive to win California and its pivotal 54 electoral votes.

The results show Dole with 42% of the vote and Clinton with 40%. About 10% of voters are undecided and 6% favor Reform Party candidate Ross Perot. Among likely voters, Dole leads 44% to 40%, within the poll’s margin of error.

“Bill Clinton and Bob Dole are locked in a statistical dead heat in Orange County and that means Bob Dole’s chances in the state are very poor,” said Mark Baldassare, director of The Times Orange County poll. “Even if Dole gets all of the undecideds and Clinton stands still, that gives Dole 52%, which is still well below the roughly 2 to 1 margin a Republican needs” here.

The poll, taken between Oct. 19 and 21, shows Dole carrying Orange County by between 19,000 and 25,000 voters, far below the 300,000-vote margin typically needed by a Republican here to offset the heavy tide of Democratic voters in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The results mirror polling done in the county in late August and mid-March, demonstrating that the Republican candidate has done little to change voters’ minds, and raising questions about whether any set of issues or an extended advertising blitz could move the electorate significantly with little more than a week to go before the Nov. 5 election.

The presidential race is deadlocked because, even in the Republican heartland of California, about half the voters feel the country is “generally going in the right direction.” In addition, Clinton draws strength in the county from voters’ support of abortion rights and their personal sense of financial well-being.

Bridget Hewett, 25, of Newport Beach, is a Republican who will vote for Clinton for all of those reasons. Chief among them, though, is abortion rights and a growing sense that “Dole is out of touch.”

“I have a real problem with Dole on a woman’s right to choose,” said the housewife. “That is the biggest thing that turned me against him.”

Orange County voters substantially favor Dole’s proposal to trim federal income taxes by 15% and also strongly support Proposition 209--a statewide ballot measure to end government affirmative action programs, for which Dole has campaigned. But those issues have not translated into an advantage for the Republican ticket, the poll found.

Republican Sonia Garcia, 32, of Buena Park, is aligned with Dole on those two issues and others, but says she will vote for Clinton. Like Hewett, she worries about Dole’s age--73--and talks about the country and her personal finances being on the right track.

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“I am pretty much comfortable with Clinton--he is a family man,” said Garcia, a truck driver for Lucky’s markets. “I don’t really think that Dole can handle the pressures. . . .I would hate to see him in office and suffer a grave illness or even possibly die. It would leave his promises not fulfilled.”

She describes Clinton as “pretty much on top of things,” and discounts a host of charges aimed at the president’s personal life and financial dealings in Arkansas.

“Nobody is perfect and we are starting to realize that we can’t have the perfect clean-cut person because [he or she] really is not there,” she said. “There is a comfort zone with President Clinton now. I really don’t want to change.”

Perhaps most remarkable of all, in a county known for its Republican partisanship, Clinton is backed by nearly one in five GOP voters. Dole gets the votes of 69% of registered Republicans. Clinton is supported by 75% of Democrats, while Dole attracts 9%.

Among independents and other party voters, who make up 15% of the county’s almost 1.3 million voters, Dole wins 16%, while Clinton is taking 44%.

Republicans comprise 52% of the county’s voters, Democrats 33%.

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“For a Republican to carry Orange County in the style required for Republicans to win the state, he needs to do extremely well among Republicans, carry most of the independent voters and a significant numbers of Democrats,” said Baldassare. Dole “doesn’t appear to be doing any of these.”

Not enough voters seem to share the views of Chelle Nickle, 23, of Fullerton. A loyal Republican and a strong opponent of abortion, Nickle thinks Dole “is a better candidate” than Clinton. She is concerned whether the country is on the wrong track, feeling “there is a lot of room for improvement . . . in just about everything.”

“It would be hard for me to vote for Clinton just knowing his morals,” she said. “Maybe Dole does a lot of stuff too, but we don’t know about it.”

The Dole campaign also has not caught fire in the county, according to the poll, because many voters accept the way President Clinton framed the race during the San Diego debate. “If you believe the California economy was better in 1992 than it is today, you should vote for Bob Dole,” the president said.

By a 40%-to-26% margin, voters say they they are better off financially now than four years ago. Clinton leads 60% to 27% among voters who say they are more secure now than in 1992. Dole leads 64% to 15% among the smaller group that feels it is doing more poorly now.

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And while voters are evenly split among those who feel the country is “generally going in the right direction” and those who say the U.S. is “seriously off on the wrong track,” the trend favors Clinton. Twice as many voters today feel the country is headed in the right direction as did in 1992.

The abortion issue continues to carry weight in presidential politics. Six in 10 Orange County voters favor a woman’s right to choose and a majority of these people support President Clinton. Even among Republicans, 51% say abortion is a matter best “left up to a woman and her doctor.”

Most significant, 81% of those who say they will vote for Clinton support abortion rights.

Dole draws substantial support from the 36% in the county who think abortion should be sharply limited or say it should be illegal under all circumstances. Six in ten of these voters support Dole.

However, Clinton gets 15% of those who think abortion should always be illegal and 21% of those who think it should be permitted only in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother.

“This should be a base for Dole,” said Baldassare. “He should be getting 100% of these groups if he is to reach the level of support here needed to carry the state, but some of these voters are driven by other issues.”

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Perhaps most frustrating for the GOP is that Dole has not been able to translate substantial support for Proposition 209 and the Dole tax cut into votes for the Republican presidential ticket.

Both issues are supported by 6 in 10 voters. However, a sizable portion of those voters are not supporting Dole. Dole is getting 62% of those who favor his tax cut plan, while 19% are going for Clinton. Meanwhile, 80% of its opponents say they support Clinton, and just 6% will vote for Dole. Only half of Proposition 209 supporters back Dole, while a third favor Clinton.

The Perot phenomenon appears to have run its course in Orange County. His unfavorable ratings have soared, going from 35% in October 1992 to 51% now. He is liked by 26% of the voters, while in 1992 that figure was 57%. Perot won 24% of the Orange County vote that year.

As they did four years ago, more voters identify the economy as the most important issue, though it is down from 52% four years ago to 20% today. The second most important issue is character, which is named by 16%, followed by taxes at 12%. No other single issue is identified by more than 7% of the voters.

That can only help Clinton, Baldassare said.

“Nothing is really dominating, nothing has really attracted the voters’ attention that much,” he said. “That also helps an incumbent. It allows people to say, ‘Let’s stay the course, the economy seems to be OK.’ ”