THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, June 8, 1994 TAG: 9406080455
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY WARREN FISKE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940608 LENGTH: RICHMOND
Of the 824 registered voters surveyed on Sunday and Monday, 28 percent said they back incumbent Democrat Charles S. Robb; 25 percent supported independent J. Marshall Coleman; 22 percent picked independent L. Douglas Wilder; and 21 percent selected Republican nominee Oliver L. North.
{REST} The poll, conducted by Mason-Dixon Political/Media Research Inc. of Columbia, Md., 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 the June 14 Democratic primary. Of the 338 Democratic voters polled, 43 percent favored Robb, 22 percent backed state Sen. Virgil H. Goode of Franklin County, 9 percent supported Richmond lawyer Sylvia Clute and 2 percent selected Nancy Spannaus, a follower of political extremist Lyndon LaRouche.
In a head-to-head race, any of the three leading Democrats topped North - Robb by 53 percent to 35 percent; Goode by 48 percent to 31 percent; and Clute by 40 percent to 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 both Robb and Wilder also suffer from image problems. Thirty-nine percent of the voters had a negative opinion 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 approved 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. Although GOP leaders have denounced Coleman for threatening to bolt the party, the poll shows that Coleman would deeply cut into North's base of conservative and moderate voters.
The survey was completed, however, before newspaper reports on Tuesday that Coleman plans to take a more moderate position on abortion if he runs this year, a change from his strong anti-abortion stand in 1989.
Coleman has been out of politics for five years. At the end of the 1989 campaign, his negative ratings soared to 38 percent.
Mark Merritt, a spokesman for North, dismissed the poll results. He predicted that North's popularity would soar 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 liberal press and directly to the people.''
The poll suggests that Robb, who has saturated the airwaves with campaign commercials in recent weeks, will lose his once-solid support from black voters should Wilder run. Seventy-four percent of African-American voters surveyed said they would support Wilder, a former Democratic governor who is black. Only 12 percent said they would back Robb.
Coleman and a spokesman for Wilder also predicted their positions would improve once they begin vigorously campaigning.
Bert Rohrer, a spokesman for Robb, said the poll indicated the incumbent's strength. ``He's the only candidate who wins every match-up,'' Rohrer said.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percent.
{KEYWORDS} SENATE RACE CANDIDATE POLL PUBLIC OPINION
by CNB