Poll position

Two public polls released yesterday show Angelides trailing Schwarzenegger by wide margins in the governor's race (17 points in the PPIC and 10 points in Field) . You can find newspaper coverage here, here, and here. The lower-down numbers are what's most interesting in the Field Poll. While Schwarzenegger is winning the support fo 77 percent of Republicans, he is losing only 4 percent to Angelides--a remarkably low number. Angelides, meanwhile is only at 61 percent support among Democrats and is losing 16 percent to Arnold. Perhaps most important, Schwarzenegger is winning in Los Angeles, where he holds a four-point advantage. That may seem small, but every point gained in Los Angeles is hard to counteract across the rest of the state. Women favor Angelides, but only by a small margin, 39 to 36 percent, while men go heavily for Arnold, 51 to 29 percent.