Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 8, 1994 TAG: 9406080094
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: VIRGINIA EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By WARREN FISKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Of 824 registered voters surveyed Sunday and Monday, 28 percent backed incumbent Democrat Charles Robb; 25 percent supported independent Marshall Coleman; 22 percent picked independent Douglas Wilder; and 21 percent selected Republican nominee Oliver North.
The poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research Inc. of Columbia, Md., for the Roanoke Times & World-News and WDBJ (Channel 7), found that 53 percent of voters have a negative opinion of North and that the Republican's best chance for victory is in a crowded field. Only 27 percent said they have a positive view of North.
According to the survey:
Robb appears to be a strong front-runner in Tuesday's Democratic primary. Of the 338 Democratic voters polled, 43 percent favored Robb, 22 percent backed state Sen. Virgil Goode of Franklin County, 9 percent supported Richmond lawyer Sylvia Clute and 2 percent selected Nancy Spannous, a follower of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche.
In a head-to-head race, any of the three top Democrats beat North: Robb would take 53 percent of the vote vs. 35 percent for North; Goode, 48 vs. 31 percent; and Clute, 40 vs. 34 percent.
The results suggest that North received no benefit in the public's eyes from his well-publicized victory Saturday at the state Republican convention. His popularity with Virginia voters decreased by 3 percentage points since March.
"The bottom line is that 100 percent of the voters know who Ollie North is, and more than half of them don't like him," said Brad Coker, president of Mason-Dixon. "Improving a negative rating is the hardest thing for a candidate to do. It's easier to drive up the negatives of your opponent. That means North will have to attack, and his opponents will have to respond."
The consolation for North is that Robb and Wilder also suffer from image problems. Thirty-nine percent of the voters had a negative opinions of Robb, while 32 percent expressed positive views of him. Wilder was disliked by 37 percent and liked by 29 percent.
Coker said the comer in the field may be Coleman, a former state attorney general who was the GOP nominee for governor in 1981 and 1989. Forty-five percent of the voters had a favorable opinion of him, while only 12 percent disliked him. "Coleman appears to have tremendous potential if he can raise enough money to run an effective campaign," Coker said.
Coleman will decide next week whether to run. Despite strenuous efforts by GOP leaders to denounce Coleman for threatening to bolt the party, the poll shows Coleman would deeply cut into North's base of conservative and moderate voters.
The survey was completed, however, before newspapers reported Tuesday that Coleman plans to take a pro-abortion-rights stand if he runs this year, a reversal of his position in 1989. Coleman has been out of politics for five years. At the end of the 1989 campaign, his negative rating in polls soared to 38 percent.
Mark Merritt, a spokesman for North, was dismissive of the poll. He predicted that North's popularity would climb once he begins a massive television advertising campaign. "We haven't told our story yet," he said. "We're going to go over the heads of the liberal press and directly to the people.
"We have all the fundamentals in place to win this race," he added. "We have the message for change, the money and the candidate to carry the message."
The poll suggests Robb would lose his once-solid support from black voters should Wilder run. Three-fourths of black voters said they would support Wilder. Only 12 percent said they would back Robb.
Coleman and a spokesman for Wilder also predicted their positions would improve once they begin campaigning vigorously.
A spokesman for Robb, who has saturated the airwaves with campaign commercials in recent weeks, said the poll was an indication of the incumbent's strength. "He's the only candidate who wins every matchup," Burt Rohrer said.
The poll has a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. That means, for example, that while the poll put Robb's support in a four-way race at 28 percent, it actually could range from 24.5 percent to 31.5 percent.
Keywords:
POLITICS
by CNB