The scramble to fill a prime Republican seat in Congress has a leading contender: state Sen. John Campbell.
A poll this week by Orange County political researcher Adam D. Probolsky found that Campbell, a Republican state lawmaker out of Irvine, is in the lead to replace Congressman Christopher Cox, R-Newport Beach.
Cox was nominated by President Bush earlier this month to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The telephone survey of 325 likely voters found that 31% of respondents favored Campbell, followed by 22% for Democrat John L. Graham, an international business professor with the Graduate School of Management at the University of California, Irvine, and 8% for businesswoman Marilyn Brewer, a Republican and former state Assemblywoman. About 39% said they were unsure which candidate they would choose.
“Senator Campbell’s significant lead is mainly due to the lack of another well-known GOP candidate,” said Probolsky, president of Probolsky Research in Laguna Hills. “The large undecided group of voters we’re seeing is not surprising given the fact that the campaign hasn’t even begun. It also shows voters may welcome other candidate choices.”
The survey, which was conducted June 10 to June 14, has a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5%.
The results aren’t too surprising after one top candidate backed out on Monday.
State Sen. Dick Ackerman, the top Republican in the Democrat-controlled state Legislature, withdrew his plans to run for Cox’s congressional seat in a special election. Ackerman was seen as the frontrunner to replace Cox.
Instead, Ackerman said he wants to remain focused on California’s budget and special election reforms set for November.
Pending Senate confirmation as chairman, Cox is set to replace former Wall Street banker William Donaldson, who announced plans to resign at the end of June.
If Cox is confirmed this summer, odds are that the race for his former seat could be added to the Nov. 8 special election set by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Cox nomination set off speculation over who would run for Cox’s seat in a solidly Republican district.
