Poll: Meg Whitman, Jerry Brown in virtual tie

California's race for governor is a dead heat, as Republican Meg Whitman's massive advertising blitz coupled with Democrat Jerry Brown's lo-fi campaign have raised doubts about Brown and cut his lead among Latino voters and other key Democratic constituencies, a Field Poll released today shows.

Brown leads Whitman 44 to 43 percent in the poll, with 13 percent undecided, according to Field's survey of 1,005 likely voters. The poll, conducted June 22 to July 5, has a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points.

But billionaire Whitman's relentless advertising campaign has helped sour voters' views of Brown, with 40 percent holding an unfavorable opinion of him - up from 25 percent in March 2009. Still, 42 percent view him favorably.

Voters feel similarly mixed about Whitman, with 40 percent viewing her favorably. But 42 percent view her unfavorably, up from 27 percent in March 2010, largely because of her bruising GOP primary against Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and attacks on her from union-backed independent expenditure groups.

Brown supporters who are banking on his name recognition to counteract the former eBay CEO's bottomless checkbook should be worried: The poll found that 34 percent of voters under 40 had "no opinion" of Brown, who was California's governor from 1975 to 1983, was Oakland's mayor from 1999 to 2007 and is now the state attorney general.

While opinions expressed in a poll taken five months before an election tend to be a bit soft, analysts said today's poll includes other ominous signs for Brown, particularly his eroding support among Latinos, who make up roughly 18 percent of the electorate and typically offer overwhelming support for Democrats.

Appealing to Latinos

Whitman has trimmed Brown's lead among Latino voters to 11 percentage points, down from 24 points in January, Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said.

"He needs to get at least two-thirds of the Latino vote," said Henry Brady, dean of the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley. "This is not a poll that bodes well for him."

Whitman began advertising heavily on Spanish-language media last month to coincide with the beginning of the World Cup soccer tournament.

Her ad campaign is an attempt to soften reaction to some of the positions she took in the primary, where Poizner staked out a more conservative position on immigration. Whitman has said she opposes allowing illegal immigrants to attend state-funded community colleges or universities, and is "100 percent against amnesty" for those who have come to the United States illegally.

Her campaign chairman is former California Gov. Pete Wilson, who led the passage in 1994 of the anti-illegal-immigration Proposition 187, which was overturned by a federal judge. But his position makes Wilson unpopular with many Latinos. In a radio ad that aired widely in the primary, Wilson said Whitman would be "tough as nails" on illegal immigration.

Still, Whitman's recent media outreach to Latinos "appears to be paying some early dividends," said Thomas Holyoke, an associate professor of political science at Fresno State University. Whitman also holds a slight edge among nonpartisan voters - a key demographic that she needs to win given that 45 percent of California voters are registered as Democrats to 31 percent registered as Republicans.

"This race is now dead even," DiCamillo said. Whitman's multimedia, multi-language advertising campaign, fueled by $91 million from her personal fortune, "has made this a fair fight" he said.

Brown's minimal advertising

However, Whitman's rising unfavorable ratings show "she hasn't made the sale yet to voters," DiCamillo said. "But she's raised doubts about Jerry Brown."

Brown has done minimal TV advertising or voter outreach, and his campaign website boasts little policy other than the clean-energy proposal he unveiled last month. While several unions and union-backed independent expenditure groups have pledged millions to thwart Whitman, they have not come close to matching her TV and radio presence.

"Brown is almost running a non-campaign out there, and it is taking its toll," Holyoke said.

Soon, Brady said, Brown will have to decide whether to "start spending his ($23 million) war chest he has now and hope more money comes in later, or hold onto it and hope that Whitman doesn't pull out to a big lead."

In the GOP primary, Poizner did not match Whitman's early spending, hoping to catch up in the campaign's final weeks with a late media push. He lost by nearly 40 percent of the vote.

But Jason McDaniel, an assistant professor of political science at San Francisco State University, said it is a sign of Brown's strength that he is running even with Whitman despite a significantly smaller and quieter campaign.

E-mail the writers at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com and ajoseph@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle