Opinion: New California GOP poll results

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Some movement up and down in a new Field Poll of 348 likely California Republican voters.

Rudy Giuliani is still on top of the field with 35%, a level he’s maintained for nearly six months. Mitt Romney trails at 14%, but that’s twice his total from March. Undeclared Fred Thompson is at 13%, up from 8%. John McCain, who had 24% in March, has tumbled to 9%.

The combined percentages for the rest of the GOP pack totals 9% with Tom Tancredo at 3%, Duncan Hunter at 2% and all the others at 1%. Sam Brownback, who had 2% in March, has 1% now. Mike Huckabee, who had 3% in March now has 1%, but most of the telephone polling was done before all the publicity surrounding his second-place Iowa straw poll finish last Saturday. Margin of error is +/- 5.4 percentage points.

One interesting tidbit from the data, which is ominous for Giuliani, is that the more a voter has followed the news, the smaller the New Yorker’s lead becomes. Among voters who claim to be following the race very closely, Giuliani’s lead over Romney is nearly slashed in half, to 13%, and his lead over Thompson falls to 15%. Presumably as the state’s primary nears, more voters will start following the news and the lead could narrow significantly.

Among population sub-groups, Romney scores the same between men and women while Giuliani and Thompson do slightly better among men. Romney and Thompson seem to do better among those over 50, Giuliani better among those 18-49. Giuliani does better in Southern California than in the northern part of the state, 37%-32%, as does Romney, 15%-13%, but Thompson does better in Northern California, 16%-12%.

Giuliani does better in coastal areas than inland, 38%-30%, while Romney polls higher inland, 16%-13%, and Thompson is about even, 14% coastal and 12% inland.

--Andrew Malcolm