McCain, Clinton have big leads in California
A new poll finds them with double-digit margins over their nearest rivals. But many prospective voters say they still could change their minds.
One week before California throws itself into the presidential contest, John McCain and Hillary Rodham Clinton hold sweeping leads in the races for their parties' nominations, but the battles remain hugely 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 voters, to 26% for Mitt Romney, who also bolstered his standing among Californians. Rudolph W. Giuliani and Mike Huckabee were stalled at essentially the same level as two weeks ago -- 13% and 11%, respectively.
Clinton held onto 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 Clinton by nearly a 2-1 margin.
The poll was conducted largely before Obama's victory Saturday in South Carolina and today's high-profile endorsements of him by U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and his niece, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg.
Even before those events, the gyrations of the presidential season had California voters uncertain about their loyalties, the poll found. Among Democrats, 3 in 10 likely voters said they could change their minds--including more than half of those supporting John Edwards, in third place with 11% of the vote.
Among Republicans, more than 4 in 10 voters said they could end up backing another candidate by election day on Feb. 5. The poll questioned 1,820 registered voters between Jan. 23 to Jan.27, including 690 deemed likely to cast ballots in the Democratic primary and another 437 likely Republican primary voters. The margin of sampling error was four points for the Democratic primary and five points among Republicans.
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.
