ALBANY – Attorney General Spitzer hasn’t even been nominated yet for governor, let alone elected, but he is already starting to meet with people as if the job was his, sources say.

Mr. Spitzer announced his candidacy for the 2006 race in December and has already raised millions of dollars from enthusiastic supporters, who hope he will bring to the job of governor the same zeal that he has brought to the attorney general’s office.

Mr. Spitzer has said little about how he would govern, and his positions on issues ranging from the state’s giant Medicaid program to the privatization of public assets are not known. His popularity is instead the result of groundbreaking settlements against the financial-services industry and the principles of economic transparency that drove them.

The strategy has worked. Polls have consistently shown Mr. Spitzer burying Mr. Pataki, or others, in a hypothetical run for governor.

A poll released yesterday by the Siena Research Institute showed him leading Mr. Pataki 55% to 32%. His lead over a former Massachusetts governor, William Weld, was even more lopsided, at 57% to 17%.

Mr. Spitzer has done more than raise money and deliver speeches in preparing for an election that is still more than one year away. Sources said he has been meeting with lobbyists at his offices at New York City and Albany in recent weeks to discuss issues that would come before him as governor. They said the meetings would not be taking place if Mr. Spitzer were not expected to win next year’s election.

“Everybody’s going down to meet with him,” a lobbyist who recently spoke with Mr. Spitzer said on condition of anonymity. “I’ve heard everybody is going in to meet with him about things that have nothing to do with the AG’s office, because it’s pretty clear he’s the guy.”

A Spitzer spokesman acknowledged that the attorney general met last week in New York City with a group of advocates for tort reform, but he said the notion his boss was receiving visitors as a sort of governor-in-waiting is false. Mr. Spitzer supports the idea of such changes, the spokesman, Darren Dopp, said, and met with advocates to discuss ways he could help their efforts as attorney general.

“I don’t think people are coming to Eliot because of what might happen in ’06,” Mr. Dopp said. “They are coming to him now requesting his support for issues that they care about. Tort reform is a classic example of that. Nobody wants to wait two years to get meaningful tort reform.”

At no point during two recent meetings with lobbyists did Mr. Spitzer acknowledge the likelihood of his becoming governor, people who were present stressed. But, they said, that advocacy groups with long-term legislative agendas are meeting with the attorney general to discuss their pet issues underscores the perception in Albany that Mr. Pataki’s days are numbered.

A scholar of New York political history, Gerald Benjamin, said he could not recall a situation in the past half-century in which a sitting governor was thought to be as vulnerable to a single opponent as Mr. Pataki is to Mr. Spitzer. He characterized the situation lobbyists have described as unusual but not surprising, especially given the absence of term limits in New York.

“If there was a strong expectation that Mr. Pataki was seeking re-election, this type of behavior would be much more discreet, because those people would not be as disposed to upsetting Mr. Pataki, or even the people who work for Mr. Pataki,” Mr. Benjamin, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the State University of New York at New Paltz, said.

A lobbyist with the firm Weingarten, Reid & McNally, Steve Weingarten, said he was among those who met with Mr. Spitzer in New York City last week, on behalf of a group of doctors seeking tort reform. He said that while his firm still “strongly supports” Mr. Pataki, it makes sense to present the legislative agendas of clients to Mr. Spitzer, in part, because of his chances of becoming governor.

“This is a coalition that has been working for years on ways to achieve reform in New York and so far has been unable to achieve these goals,” Mr. Weingarten said. “We have met with Eliot in his capacity as attorney general and continue to do so, but more and more groups are trying to sit down with him to discuss their legislative agendas. Our clients have met with him in both capacities.”

Mr. Benjamin said advocacy groups are likely to seek out the attention of a potential candidate this far ahead of an election only when a sitting governor is widely expected not to run again and when an avowed candidate is thought to have extremely good chances of winning an open seat. He said Mr. Pataki, for instance, would not have been courted before his first term because Governor Cuomo was not viewed as a likely loser.

“Most states have term limits for governors, so in most states, people who have business with the state know that a particular sitting governor will not continue in power and so they will seek out others,” Mr. Benjamin said. “But in New York, where we have no term limit, this would be likely to occur only if there was a strong presumption that the present governor would not seek re-election.”

Mr. Pataki said again yesterday that he would make a decision on whether to run for a fourth four-year term at “the appropriate time.” The longer he waits, however, the more likely the lobbyists and others are to position themselves around a likely successor.

Even the former Republican senator who is often referred to as Mr. Pataki’s mentor, Alfonse D’Amato, is reported to have shared meals with Mr. Spitzer. Mr. D’Amato is a principal at a Manhattan-based lobbying firm, Park Strategies, LLC.

Despite the possible intentions of lobbyists, Mr. Dopp insisted that Mr. Spitzer has not viewed meetings with advocates in light of his chances of becoming governor.

“The notion that people are coming to him now based on what might happen in 2007 is false,” Mr. Dopp said. “It may be in the back of people’s minds, but it’s not on Mr. Spitzer’s radar screen. Instead, it’s all about what we can do now on important issues. In order to get anything passed in Albany, you’ve got to build a coalition. It’s way too early for that kind of discussion.”

The speaker of the state Assembly, Sheldon Silver, a Democrat of Manhattan, said, however, that for some advocates, now might not be too early to approach Mr. Spitzer.

“He’s going to be governor in two years,” Mr. Silver said. “If you want to pass legislation two, three years from now, I would suggest that they talk to him. Most of the people want to pass it this year.”