McCain, Clinton leading big in state

One week before California throws itself into the presidential contest, John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton hold imposing leads in the races for their parties’ nominations, but the battles remain extremely volatile, a new statewide poll has found.

The L.A. Times/CNN/Politico poll, conducted by Opinion Research Corp., showed that McCain has vaulted ahead of three other candidates with whom he shared a statistical tie for the Republican nomination just two weeks ago. He carried 39% of likely Republican primary participants, to 26% for Mitt Romney, who also bolstered his standing among California voters. Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mike Huckabee were stalled at essentially the same level as two weeks ago -- 13% and 11%, respectively.

Clinton maintained a 49% to 32% lead over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama among Democrats, despite losing some support in key voter groups. Democratic women continued to power her effort, siding with the New York senator by nearly a 2-1 margin.

The poll was conducted largely before Obama’s victory Saturday in South Carolina and the subsequent high-profile endorsements of him by U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) and his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg.

The effect of those events was unclear, but even before the latest developments, the gyrations of the presidential season had California voters uncertain of their loyalties, the poll found. Among those likely to vote in the Democratic primary, 3 in 10 said they could change their minds -- including more than half of those supporting John Edwards, in third place with 11% of the vote. More than 4 in 10 Republicans, as well, said they could end up backing another candidate by election day on Feb. 5.

In an interview conducted after the poll, retired businessman Robert Manahan of Irvine, a Republican, said he was disappointed with Giuliani’s faltering campaign, thought Huckabee was not up to the job of president and differed with McCain on several issues, most prominently immigration. That left him tentatively in Romney’s corner.

“Probably, I’m not going to make up my mind until I fill out the absentee ballot,” he said.

Under the supervision of Times Poll Director Susan Pinkus, the survey questioned 1,820 registered voters from Jan. 23 through Sunday, including 690 deemed likely to cast ballots in the Democratic primary and another 437 likely Republican primary voters. The margin of sampling error was 4 percentage points for the Democratic primary and 5 points among Republicans.

Among other findings, the poll underscored how the quirks of California’s primary could affect the vote when the results are tabulated.

About half of voters are expected to use mail-in ballots -- which have been available since Jan. 7 -- and Clinton was romping over Obama among that group, 53% to 30%. Among those expecting to cast ballots in a traditional precinct visit, the race was a closer 42% to 34% in Clinton’s favor. Former Massachusetts Gov. Romney was also running stronger among mail-in voters, if still behind McCain.

Unlike in past campaigns, when the state’s delegates were largely awarded to the statewide winner, delegates this year will be allocated on both sides under formulas that are tied to the results in each congressional district. That means that a candidate who loses the statewide vote -- even significantly -- could still pick up delegates with strong regional showings.

There was little distinction at this point in the Republican race, as McCain, a U.S. senator from Arizona, led in all areas. But on the Democratic side, the geographic breakdown showed why the Obama campaign has continued to campaign fiercely in the state despite Clinton’s consistent lead.

In the Bay Area, where both campaigns have been airing ads, Obama was within the margin of error, with Clinton ahead 41% to 38%. In the Los Angeles area, the second major Democratic base, Clinton was ahead 45% to 39% -- again within the margin of error. She held strong leads in the rest of the state.

Also complicating the vote Tuesday will be the role of independents -- those who register not with a major party but as “decline to state” voters. They will be allowed to request a ballot for the Democratic or American Independent primaries but not be allowed to vote in the Republican contest.

That led to concern among McCain’s partisans, since he has done best this year in primaries where independents bolstered his standing. Even without them in California, he was leading. Obama, however, continued to benefit from their presence, as he has elsewhere. Among Democrats in California, he was losing resoundingly. But he easily carried independent voters, who had sided with Clinton in the poll two weeks ago.

Still, the most striking movement in the two weeks since the last Times Poll came on the Republican side. Two weeks ago, McCain, Romney, former New York Mayor Giuliani and former Arkansas Gov. Huckabee were bunched between 13% and 20% of the vote, a statistical tie.

But the new poll showed McCain nearly doubling his share of the vote and Romney adding significantly to his portion, reaching voters who had either been undecided before or had backed former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson, who dropped out of the race between the two polls.

Bonnie Reed, a retired state worker from Sacramento, said she was in the McCain camp despite some interest in Romney.

“I have not been swayed away from him,” she said. “I thought he was straight-talking. I didn’t feel he was playing the political game the way some of the others do.”

Both McCain and Romney consolidated support among the conservatives who form the backbone of the state party. McCain was the choice of 32%, up from 23% two weeks ago. Romney moved from 18% to 28% of conservatives.

McCain trounced the other candidates among self-described liberal and moderate Republicans, with 50% to Romney’s 15%. The others were in single digits -- including Giuliani, the moderate who once hoped that California would buttress his Feb. 5 strategy.

Huckabee continued to perform more strongly among evangelical voters, carrying 23% compared with 5% of non-evangelicals. But there, too, McCain did best, winning more than a third of both categories.

Oddly, there was something of a generation gap in the Republican race. McCain, the oldest candidate at 71, was handily winning voters 50 and younger, by a margin of more than 2 to 1. But his lead over the 60-year-old Romney among older voters was more tenuous.

Of late, the GOP contest has split into two arguments. Romney has contended that he is best suited to handle the economy, but likely primary voters were split between him and McCain. McCain, by huge margins, was seen as better able to handle Iraq and to fight terrorism -- which reflects his central argument. And, despite widespread Republican anger about his failed effort to press immigration reform, McCain also was seen as the best to handle illegal immigration.

Among Democrats, there was little movement in the last two weeks, at least overall. Clinton’s 17-point margin was statistically the same as her 16-point gap earlier. But she held on to a smaller segment of liberals, men, the less-educated and coastal and Bay Area voters, among others.

She made up for it, however, by increasing her margin of support among Democratic women from 15 points to 26 points. And she strongly held on to another base of her strength, winning Latinos by a 2-1 margin. Latinos are expected to make up about a quarter of the Democratic electorate. (Her showing among white voters was slightly smaller, at 47% to Obama’s 28%.)

Among Clinton’s supporters is Patsy Newton, a 70-year-old retired proofreader from Auburn, who said of the senator: “I liked her better than I did anyone else -- I did before, and I’ve never changed my mind.” She said she was not concerned about recent statements by Bill Clinton.

“I don’t think she’s going to listen to him to begin with,” she said. “Besides, other than his morals, I liked him.”

Clinton’s dominance in California was clear when voters were asked who was best equipped to handle pressing issues. She won by a better than 2-1 margin when it came to the economy and healthcare. On Iraq, though she has been criticized for voting to give President Bush the authority to invade, Clinton carried 44% of voters to Obama’s 29%.

Perhaps most telling, however, was the judgment of which candidate would substantially change the way things are done in Washington. Obama has made that the main argument of his campaign. Clinton spent months touting her experience in Washington before claiming the mantle of change herself. The poll showed that, in California at least, she had fought him to a draw on that subject.

cathleen.decker@latimes.com