In Polls, Clinton Loses to Republicans

WASHINGTON — It is a paradox of the 2008 presidential race. By a wide margin, several polls show, voters want a Democrat to win — yet when offered head-to-head contests of leading announced candidates, many switch allegiance to the Republican.

In a Los Angeles Times-Bloomberg poll conducted earlier this month, this dynamic was most clearly evident with Senator Clinton.

When registered voters were asked which party they would like to win the White House, they preferred a Democrat over a Republican by 8%. But in a race pitting Mrs. Clinton against Mayor Giuliani, a Republican, the former New York mayor was favored by 10%.

Mrs. Clinton's showing against Mr. Giuliani was the starkest example of how the general Democratic edge sometimes narrows or vanishes when voters are given specific candidates to choose between.

The poll also showed Mrs. Clinton trailing when matched against two other Republicans — Senator McCain of Arizona and a former Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney.

The deficits, however, were within the survey's margin of error of plus or minus 3%.

These results, as well as follow-up interviews of poll respondents, reflect the array of difficulties that Mrs. Clinton could face as the Democratic nominee.

Plenty of time remains for Mrs. Clinton to temper resistance to her candidacy. But for now, her failure to match her party's generic advantage underscores the primacy of personal appeal in a presidential race, regardless of political context.

"You give someone a name, and they automatically associate it with a specific set of pros and cons," said Dean Spiliotes, a political science professor at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire. "With a candidate as well known as Hillary Clinton, that's going to cause some problems."

Conversations with a dozen Times-Bloomberg poll respondents exposed a sour aftertaste from controversies of her White House years with President Clinton. Mark Penn, Mrs. Clinton's chief campaign strategist, said his reading of the electorate is that few voters hold such views.

A more important aspect of the race, he said, is the strength of Mrs. Clinton's support from women inspired by the hope of electing the nation's first female president.

Some political veterans contend that polling on general-election matchups can be highly misleading when so much of the campaign lies ahead.

"It says nothing about an election 17 months from now," said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster. "But it does say something about now."