Opinion: Clinton still dominates in California

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When is a 25-percentage-point deficit in a poll a small dose of good news?

When you’re Barack Obama, and the last time the poll checked your standing in California, you were 30 points behind Hillary Clinton.

A Field Poll released today found Clinton backed by 45% of the state’s Democrats, Obama by 20% and John Edwards by 11%. The numbers posted by the party’s other presidential contenders aren’t worth mentioning (though they can be perused here).

The last Field Poll, in August, showed Clinton with 49% and Obama with 19%. (Edwards had 10%.)

At best, to repeat, the new numbers represent minor glad tidings for Obama, in part because Clinton’s lead in the Feb. 5 primary is so large, and ...

in part because the poll’s error margin for its Democratic sample -- plus or minus 4.8 percentage points -- means the actual shift could be negligible.

The survey’s demographic breakouts replicate, at the state level, what a new L.A. Times/Bloomberg Poll found nationally: Clinton is stealing Obama’s thunder among population groups that once appeared to be his base, such as younger voters and the well-off, while maintaining substantial support from her core backers, such as the less affluent.

The Field Poll also tested general election matchups, and again, its findings might provide a wee bit of encouragement to a Clinton foe, but the emphasis is on the ‘wee.’

Rudy Giuliani has been promoting his potential to bring Democratic-leaning states into play next year as one reason Republicans should rally behind his presidential candidacy. And, according to the new survey, in California he would run better against Clinton than any other of the leading GOP contenders. Still, the poll found him trailing her by 14 percentage points: 52% to 38%.

Nor has there been discernable movement in this matchup. In March, the survey showed Giuliani down to Clinton by 13 percentage points; in August, the difference was 15 points.

The error margin for this part of the poll is plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

The survey’s look at GOP presidential preferences within the state was released Thursday and can be found here.

-- Don Frederick