Phil Angelides has erased rival Steve Westly's lead in the Democratic primary contest for governor, making the race a tossup as the two dash into the final 10 days of the campaign, a new Los Angeles Times poll has found.
The lack of a clear front-runner ensures a fiercely competitive fight in the closing phase of a match already notable for scathing character attacks.
If the June 6 election were held today, likely Democratic primary voters would favor Angelides over Westly, 37% to 34%. That is a statistical tie, given the poll's margin of sampling error: plus or minus 5 percentage points.
The poll found 28% of likely voters undecided, an unusually large proportion at this late stage of the campaign.
Despite the close margin and huge undecided bloc, the poll found stagnation for Westly, the state controller, and strong momentum for Angelides, the state treasurer.
In a Times survey last month, Westly led Angelides, 33% to 20%. This time, Westly has hardly budged, while Angelides has leapt 17 points, thanks largely to surging support among liberals and union members, two of the party's biggest constituencies.
But public opinion on both men is highly unstable. Both were barely known to most voters until recent weeks. Neither candidate has a strong base of support; 41% of likely voters who support Westly or Angelides might change their minds. And a raging battle of negative TV commercials still could shift public perceptions significantly.
Angelides' ads slamming Westly for breaking his vow not to run negative spots have led poll respondent Phyllis Schissel to question Westly's integrity. "If he breaks that promise, what else is he saying he's going to do that he's not going to do?" the Democrat, a school speech pathologist, said in a follow-up interview.
Westly ads nudged Whittier housewife Beatrice McLaren in the opposite direction. "I was leaning toward Angelides, but I'm not leaning that way anymore," said McLaren, 85, a Democrat alarmed by a Westly ad saying Angelides took campaign money from oil companies.
Despite the surge by Angelides, likely voters in the Democratic primary still say, when asked to compare the two, that Westly has a better chance of ousting Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in November.
And, separately, the poll also found Westly performing stronger than Angelides in hypothetical November contests against Schwarzenegger.
