Yet Another Poll: Clinton with Surprisingly Big Lead in California

By: At some point, the handful of delegates at stake in Iowa and New Hampshire will be forgotten when the giant bonanza from California is distributed to presidential candidates in both parties on February 5. The state has not gotten much attention from the media so far, but that is now changing, with Hillary Clinton taking a surprisingly firm lead over Barack Obama and John McCain continuing his Lazarus-like act.

A CNN-Los Angeles Times-Politico survey, conducted by Opinion Research Corp., was conducted Jan. 11-13. It included interviews with 384 likely Democratic primary voters, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points, and 255 likely Republican primary voters, with a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 6 percentage points.

Here are the numbers:

DEMOCRATS

Hillary Clinton, 47 percent

Barack Obama, 31 percent

John Edwards, 10 percent

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REPUBLICANS

John McCain, 20 percent

Mitt Romney, 16 percent

Rudy Giuliani, 14 percent

Mike Huckabee, 13 percent

Ron Paul, 8 percent

Fred Thompson, 6 percent

About four in 10 Democrats and six in 10 Republicans said they still might change their minds. California is one of 24 states holding primaries or caucuses on Feb. 5.