Big Leads for Bush, Gore in Calif. Primary

Al Gore and George W. Bush have established commanding leads to win the delegates at stake in next week’s California presidential primaries, a Times Poll has found.

As the Democratic candidates arrive in Los Angeles for a nationally televised debate tonight, former Sen. Bill Bradley has seen his support collapse and now trails Vice President Gore by nearly 5 to 1 among Democratic voters, the survey found.

Among GOP voters, Texas Gov. Bush now leads Arizona Sen. John McCain by 47% to 26%. Alan Keyes trails distantly with 6%.

Those leads for Gore and Bush are critical because only the votes of party members will be counted in allocating delegates in both the Republican and Democratic contests. A victory by Bush, in particular, could give him a huge advantage in the GOP contest, because California Republicans will award all of the state’s 162 delegates--nearly one-sixth of the total needed for the nomination--to the statewide winner.

McCain supporters are hoping to dilute the impact of a potential Bush delegate sweep by overtaking the Texas governor in the nonbinding tally of all voters in California’s open primary. That could give McCain ammunition to portray himself as the stronger general election candidate. But even on that front, McCain still lags slightly behind Bush--largely because Gore is proving a potent competitor for the moderate Democrat and independent votes the Arizona senator is targeting, the poll found.

That dynamic could suggest trouble for McCain in other states down the road that allow crossover voting but will also hold Democratic primaries on the same day, such as Ohio, Missouri, and Georgia on Tuesday and Tennessee one week later.

“This is a big change in the playing field for McCain,” says Democratic pollster Geoff Garin. “Democrats now have a place to go, and in most cases a more logical place to go.”

The Times Poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, surveyed 1,053 likely primary voters; it has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Included in that sample were 540 likely Democratic voters and 409 likely Republican voters; the margin of sampling error for questions relating solely to Republican voters is plus or minus 5 percentage points. For Democrats, it is plus or minus 4 percentage points.

A Highly Competitive State ‘Beauty Contest’

As the poll demonstrates, California’s open primary is proving a complex, multilevel competition. In the nonbinding “beauty contest” portion, all voters will choose among all the candidates, regardless of party.

That contest remains highly competitive, the survey found. Among all likely voters next week, Gore draws 33%, followed by Bush with 26%, McCain with 20%, Bradley at 7%, and Alan Keyes at 4%. With the Bush-McCain contest so close, the result may be determined by which one inspires more turnout among his core supporters.

McCain’s campaign aides suggested Tuesday that if they win the popular vote but lose the delegates, they might challenge that result at the convention. Short of that, however, the stakes in the open primary are the chance to claim bragging rights as the stronger general election candidate in California.

In particular, McCain advisors hope that a victory in the California popular vote--combined with wins in the Northeast and portions of the Midwest on March 7--would allow the senator to tout himself to voters in later states as a more electable nominee, even if he loses California’s delegate trove.

But in this all-against-all competition, McCain’s problem appears as much Gore as Bush. In the earlier primaries, McCain has depended on a huge vote among Democrats and independents to offset Bush’s strength among partisan Republicans. In California, Bush is still dominating McCain among Republicans. But McCain is not drawing nearly as many crossover votes as in earlier states, largely because Gore is winning many of those voters. McCain trails Gore among California independents and, while Gore wins 54% of Democrats, McCain is attracting just 1 in 7, the survey found.

That’s not an inconsiderable showing in the opposite party: Indeed, the survey finds that McCain runs ahead of Bradley (who draws just 11%) among Democrats. But it’s a far cry from the roughly 80% that exit polls showed McCain winning from Democrats voting in Michigan and South Carolina--both of which did not have Democratic primaries on the day of the Republican vote.

In any case, only Republican votes will be counted in the winner-take-all competition for California’s GOP delegates. And on that front, McCain faces a huge hurdle: a California electorate that, ideologically, looks much more like South Carolina than Michigan.

In the Times survey, fully 65% of California Republicans likely to vote next week describe themselves as conservative; that’s about the same as South Carolina and far more than the 46% of Michigan voters who described themselves as such. (That helped explain why McCain lost in South Carolina and won in Michigan).

And as he has since New Hampshire, Bush continues to pummel McCain among these conservative voters. Conservative California Republicans prefer Bush over McCain by nearly 3 to 1.

In the survey, McCain leads among moderate Republicans by 14 percentage points. But that is too small an advantage, with too small a slice of the electorate, to overcome Bush’s dominance among conservatives.

As in other states, the poll finds that McCain is facing overwhelming resistance among social conservatives--some of whose leaders he denounced as intolerant in a sharply worded speech Monday. Just over half of California Republican voters support a ban on abortion: They prefer Bush over McCain by almost 3 to 1. Those who say abortion should remain legal split almost evenly, with Bush leading, 39% to 34%.

All signs in the survey suggest it will be difficult for McCain to overcome Bush’s lead among Republicans. At the most basic level, a significantly higher percentage of Bush voters (73%) than McCain voters (58%) say they are certain to support their candidate. Similarly, though both men enjoy high favorability ratings among Republican voters, Bush’s are slightly higher.

And by well over 2 to 1, Republican voters say they believe Bush would be a stronger general election nominee than McCain.

But even as he consolidates conservatives against McCain in the primary, the poll finds troubling signs for Bush as a potential general election candidate in California. Bush’s tilt right in the last three months has clearly left an impression: 46% of all likely California voters say they consider Bush more conservative than themselves (compared to just 37% for McCain). And Bush is still struggling to sell his tax plan: Nearly three-fourths of all state voters say the federal budget surplus should be used primarily to strengthen Social Security and Medicare with only a small tax cut (as both Gore and McCain have essentially proposed). Only one-fifth back Bush’s idea of a major tax cut.

Nor did Bush show much crossover appeal in the poll. In the open primary, he draws just 1 in 9 Democrats and only 1 in 10 independents. Most strikingly, he’s made little progress with Latinos, despite targeting them with Spanish-language television advertising and personal appearances.

But just 1 in 5 Latinos say they plan to vote for Bush next week--not much more than the 1 in 6 who say they will back McCain. Both men trail distantly behind Gore, who draws nearly half the Latino vote. Even more strikingly, 52% of Latinos--whose sentiments were measured in a special sample--say they have an unfavorable impression of Bush. In stark contrast, 67% of Latinos have a favorable impression of Gore, and 56% view McCain favorably.

If the Democratic race were a boxing match, the poll suggests, the referees would be stepping into the ring to end it.

After weeks of deriding Gore as a “conservative Democrat” and portraying himself as the true liberal, Bradley trails the vice president among liberal California Democrats by 61% to 13%. Moderate and conservative Democrats give Gore 45% of their vote, with Bradley at only 8%, running well behind both McCain (20%) and Bush (17%). African Americans and Latinos prefer Gore over Bradley by a combined margin of 60% to 8%.

Gore Beginning to Target GOP

With Bradley’s campaign staggering, Gore is slowly shifting his focus toward the general election. On that front, the survey offers Gore generally, but not unequivocally, positive news.

On the one hand, Gore consistently leads both Bush and McCain on a series of questions measuring voter assessments of the candidates’ strengths--from which candidate has the clearest vision, to who could best handle education, Social Security and foreign policy, to who is the most qualified to serve.

Californians are also expressing a strong sense of satisfaction with the economy, the country’s direction (nearly 3 in 5, a strikingly high number, say the nation is on the right track) and their own economic situation and President Clinton’s job performance. All of that could help Gore make the case for continuity if he becomes the nominee.

On the other hand, personal attitudes toward Gore remain mixed, with 52% of all voters viewing him favorably and 44% unfavorably. (That’s not much better than Bush, and far behind McCain.) And Clinton remains personally unpopular, with more than 3 in 5 voters saying they dislike him. Those are head winds that could disturb the enormous tail wind provided to Gore by the broad sense of satisfaction with the economy and the country’s basic direction.

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The Matchup in California

The Tuesday California primary is less than a week away and Vice President Al Gore is the favorite of all likely voters in the non-binding beauty contest, but more importantly he has a commanding lead among Democratic voters. And Texas Gov. George W. Bush has a decisive lead among Republicans.

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Likely Voters

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All Democrats Republicans * Bill Bradley 7% 11% 3% * George W. Bush 26 11 47 * Al Gore 33 54 7 * Alan Keyes 4 1 6 * John McCain 20 14 26

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Who do you think has a clearer vision to lead the country?

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Bradley Bush Gore Keyes McCain 7% 23% 36% 5% 19%

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Who do you think will bring change to Washington?

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Bradley Bush Gore Keyes McCain 9% 18% 20% 9% 31%

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Who do you think would be best to handle education?

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Bradley Bush Gore Keyes McCain 11% 24% 36% 5% 10%

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Who do you think would be best to handle Social Security?

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Bradley Bush Gore Keyes McCain 10% 22% 35% 4% 16%

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Who do you think would best handle foreign policy?

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Bradley Bush Gore Keyes McCain 3% 22% 35% 4% 24%

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Who do you think would best handle the budget surplus?

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Bradley Bush Gore Keyes McCain 7% 26% 33% 5% 17%

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Who do you think would be best at getting things done?

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Bradley Bush Gore Keyes McCain 5% 28% 35% 3% 21%

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* Among likely voters

Notes: Numbers do not total 100% where “Don’t know” or other answer categories are not shown.

How the Poll Was Conducted

The Times Poll contacted 1,872 Californians registered to vote, including 1,053 voters likely to vote in the California primary on Tuesday, by telephone February 23-28. Among likely voters, 540 are Democrats and 409 are Republicans. Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the state. Random-digit dialing techniques (RDD) were used so that listed and unlisted numbers could be contacted. The sample was weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education, region and the secretary of state’s figures for party registration. The margin of sampling error for likely voters is plus or minus 3 percentage points, for Democrats it is 4 points and for Republicans it is 5 points. For certain other subgroups the error margin may be somewhat higher. An RDD oversample of 1,516 black and Latino residents yielded 619 Latino registered voters, including 245 Latino likely voters, and 124 registered black voters. Poll results can also be affected by other factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented. The survey was conducted in English and Spanish. Half of the interviewing of the Latino and black oversample was conducted by Interviewing Service of America, Inc.

Times Poll results are also available at https://www.latimes.com/timespoll