Strickland Says His Own Survey Shows Him Ahead

Weighing in with his own poll, Republican candidate Tony Strickland said Tuesday that his campaign is comfortably ahead in a contentious race against Democrat Roz McGrath for an open Assembly seat.

“We’re doing well,” said Strickland, whose polling firm found him leading McGrath 38% to 31%, with 27% undecided and 4% favoring Reform Party candidate Michael Farris.

McGrath, seeking to buttress her campaign in a traditionally Republican district, reported last week that she was in a virtual dead heat with Strickland, leading 31% to 30%.

But Strickland said Tuesday that the results of his survey of 300 likely voters in the 37th Assembly District confirm what his instincts and district demographics have been telling him all along.

The district, which has 3,500 more Republicans registered than Democrats, includes the Republican enclaves of Thousand Oaks, Moorpark and Camarillo and the Democratic strongholds of Oxnard and Port Hueneme.

“We tested what is going to be said about me in this campaign to see if that is really going to move voters, and we saw that it really didn’t,” Strickland said. He was referring to McGrath’s assertion that Strickland is a right-wing extremist who opposes gun control and abortion and is backed by the National Rifle Assn. and the Christian Coalition,

The poll, conducted last week, also found that 56% of voters knew of Strickland, including 20% who had a favorable impression and 9% who had a negative one. Of the 43% who knew McGrath, 16% remarked favorably and 6% negatively, according to the poll.

Phil Giarrizzo, a McGrath consultant, said the Republican poll confirms that the Assembly race is tight, especially when the poll’s 6% potential margin of error is considered.

“Statistically, I don’t think the difference matters much,” he said. “This race is going to come down to the difference between these candidates and how well they communicate those differences over the next 30 days. We will point out the differences on important issues such as gun control, abortion and growth and development and professional experience.”

Yet, the poll results are particularly important to McGrath, who is relying on an infusion of cash from the state Democratic Party if she hopes to match Strickland, who spent $189,000 in the primary and has raised $115,000 more so far.

Strickland, former chief aide to Assemblyman Tom McClintock, is backed by an array of pro-business, small-government political action committees determined to add him to the list of conservative legislators who have helped shift California politics to the right this decade.

So far, McGrath’s largest contributors have been labor unions. She has raised about $40,000, but says it will probably take $500,000 to win.

McGrath, a Somis kindergarten teacher, insisted Tuesday that high-ranking state Democrats are expressing a heightened interest in her campaign.

“I think the chances [of funding] are still at the same level,” she said. “I think I’m still within the realm of what Sacramento is looking for.”

Darry Sragow, campaign manager for the Assembly Democratic Caucus, said the results of Strickland’s poll are similar enough to McGrath’s to indicate she has a chance to win.

“We would never make any kind of judgment about a race based on the opposition’s poll,” he said. “But the fact their poll is showing only a 7% spread confirms that this race is a dead heat. And that’s why we’re looking at this race so closely.”

A decision on whether to pour Democratic money into McGrath’s campaign probably will be made within a couple of weeks, he said.

“It is one of several races around the state where the Democrats have a tremendous opportunity,” Sragow said. “This district should never be in play for the Democrats, but it is.”

Neither camp seemed much interested in a debate over which poll is more accurate, although Giarrizzo said the Republicans’ sampling of 300 households was too small. The Democrats polled 400 likely voters last week.

Strickland said his poll was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies of Virginia, the nation’s largest Republican polling firm. “They were right on target in the primary,” Strickland said, “and I have no reason to believe they are not right on now.”

Of particular interest in the new poll, said Strickland consultant Joe Giardiello, was not only Strickland’s lead but also the finding that Democrats seemed so disinterested in the November election and turned off by the scandal that ensnares the Clinton presidency.

“Our pollster believes the Clinton scandal is definitely having an impact in this district,” Giardiello said. “He says it’s like ‘94, and the Democrats aren’t going to turn out.”

Gene Ulm, who conducted the poll, said that Democrats are demoralized and the Republicans are angry because of Clinton. “And anger is always the primary motivator” for voters, he said.

Traditionally, Democrats are less consistent voters than Republicans anyway. And Giardiello said the Strickland poll was 43% Republican and 38% Democratic to reflect probable turnout from a district where registration is 42% Republican and 40% Democratic.

Unlike last week’s Democratic poll in which voters were given biographical information about both candidates, the Republican poll followed up its initial question about candidate preference with characterizations of McGrath and her positions.

For example, one poll question asked voters if they were more or less likely to vote for McGrath based on this assertion: “Rosalyn McGrath is a liberal Democrat whose campaign is being funded by labor unions,” Giardiello said.

In other questions, pollsters stated McGrath’s purported positions on welfare reform, tax cuts, illegal immigration, abortion and gun control, he said.

The results of this so-called “informed ballot,” were 46% for Strickland, 30% for McGrath and 4% for Farris, Giardiello said.

“When you inform people of the positions, it’s very clear this district is not going to vote for a liberal Democrat,” he said.

McGrath has described herself most recently as a conservative Democrat.

“Liberal, huh?” she said. “That’s their tactic. They recognize I’m a serious candidate that needs to be reckoned with, so they’re going to misrepresent me the best they can.”