Field Poll shows Whitman keeps wide lead in GOP primary
Source: Jim Miller/Riverside Press-Enterprise
Meg Whitman continues to hold a large lead over Steve Poizner in the Republican race for governor, a new poll shows, with the big-bucks fight leaving almost a fifth of the GOP electorate undecided heading into Tuesday's primary election.
The Field Poll survey released today of likely Republican primary voters shows that Whitman, the former eBay chief, leads Poizner, California's insurance commissioner, 51 percent to 25 percent. Eighteen percent of voters are on the fence.
Whitman's margin is down from the 63 percent support she had in March and Poizner's backing has almost doubled from 14 percent as he began to advertise.
But Whitman still holds a two-to-one advantage, today's poll shows. She has strong support among vote-by-mail and polling-place voters, conservatives, self-identified followers of the tea party movement and throughout the state's different regions.
All of that makes Whitman the odds-on favorite to win Tuesday, Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said.
"Poizner does not seem to have carved out any real strong niches among any of the GOP primary electorate," DiCamillo said Thursday. "It's not as if he has this large segment of precinct voters waiting to vote for him."
The Whitman-Poizner fight has set spending records, with both candidates contributing millions from their personal fortunes. As of Thursday, Whitman had donated $71 million to her campaign and Poizner had given $24.4 million to his.
The money has paid for an onslaught of negative TV ads and mailers. Each candidate accuses the other of secret liberal leanings and being soft on illegal immigration.
The advertising likely is a major reason why 18 percent of Republican voters are undecided, DiCamillo said. Similarly, GOP voters with mail ballots seem to be holding onto them longer than normal to weigh the late charges and counter-charges.
Poll respondent Suzanne Kimball, of Calimesa, said the fight has been a turnoff. She said she supports Poizner as "the lesser of two evils."
"I would really prefer somebody else," said Kimball, a 55-year-old businesswoman. "I just feel that Meg Whitman is a little too liberal and more like Arnold Schwarzenegger."
Respondent Vanessa Gomez, of Upland, said she has received little mail from the candidates. She plans to support Whitman, although she has yet to study up on the candidates' positions. "I just like her opinions," said Gomez, 22.
Next week's winner will face presumptive Democratic nominee Attorney General Jerry Brown, who faces no serious opposition in the Democratic primary.
Today's poll found that 61 percent of GOP voters believe that Whitman has the strongest chance of defeating Brown, with only 21 percent picking Poizner.
Supporters of both candidates overwhelmingly think their choice would fare best against Brown. But 25 percent of Poizner supporters acknowledge that they think Whitman would give Brown a tougher run.
"We're happy to see that the poll confirms what we are feeling across our campaign -- growing support for Meg Whitman as the one Republican candidate who can beat Jerry Brown in November and bring a new agenda of creating jobs, controlling wasteful spending, fighting illegal immigration and improving our schools to Sacramento," Whitman spokeswoman Sarah Pompei said.
Poizner spokesman Jarrod Agen said the campaign is working hard in the final days to win over undecided voters and peel away Whitman backers.
"We've seen throughout the race that Whitman's support is very soft. We've cut into her lead before and we're confident we can do it again," he said.
Today's Field Poll was conducted for The Press-Enterprise and other California media subscribers. It is based on the responses of 511 likely voters in Tuesday's Republican primary. The margin of error is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
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