(c) 2003 The Times

BATON ROUGE - Republican Bobby Jindal, leading Democrat Kathleen Blanco by five points, was nearing a 50 percent majority with likely voters, according to a Times/Louisiana Gannett poll taken this week and released Friday.

Forty-eight percent favored Jindal and 43 percent Blanco. The rest were undecided in the poll of 625 self-identified likely voters statewide was taken Tuesday through Thursday nights.

"It looks like it is his race to lose, but that doesn't mean he has it nailed down," said pollster Brad Coker. "From the time the poll was finished, there were nine days left - a long time in a hotly contested race."

Louisiana's Gannett newspapers, including The Times, paid for the poll, which has a margin of error of 4 points.

Favorable opinions

Both Jindal and Blanco are household names: 98 percent of those polled recognized their names, and only one out of four had neutral opinions about them.

Jindal had a slight edge in favorable/unfavorable ratios with 53 percent of the respondents saying they had a favorable opinion of him compared to 47 percent for Kathleen Blanco.

Jindal's largest lead was in northern and central Louisiana, 51 percent to 37 percent for Blanco. He had an 11-point lead in his home base of Baton Rouge and in the Florida parishes (so called because they were part of the Florida colony, not the Louisiana Purchase).

The gap was narrower in the New Orleans metro area, where the point spread was 48 for Jindal to Blanco's 42. Blanco held a 13-point lead in her Acadiana home base.

Traditional gaps

There were the traditional racial and gender gaps. Whites favored the Republican Jindal by a two-to-one margin over Blanco, a Democrat. Blacks favored Blanco by more than eight-to-one - 83 percent for Blanco compared to 11 percent for Jindal. Among all men, Jindal held a 53-39 advantage, while Blanco had 46-43.

Jindal held a 40-point advantage among white men, 66 to 26, but only a 24-point advantage, 56 to 32, among white women. Among black males, Blanco had a 65-point advantage, but among black females, Blanco's advantage was 78 points.

The turnout

The turnout level among black voters is still very important to the outcome of the race, Coker said. The gender gap has been around for 20 years in national politics, said Coker, whose firm, Mason-Dixon Polling and Research of Washington, D.C., has polled in all 50 states.

"It's natural whenever there is a Republican vs. a Democrat. Democrats have done more to attract women, and Republicans appeal more to men," he said.

The endorsements

U.S. Sen. John Breaux's endorsement might be worth more to Blanco than Gov. Mike Foster's endorsement of Jindal "because Breaux is so much more popular than Foster. Breaux is given a positive rating by 71 percent and a negative rating by only 26 percent of those holding an opinion, while Foster is rated negatively by 49 percent and positively by 48 percent.

While more than half the undecided voters in the governor's race said an endorsement made no difference to them, 23 percent said Breaux's endorsement would be more influential, compared to 9 percent who said Foster's support might make a difference.

No one is neutral on President George W. Bush, who has not campaigned in Louisiana, as he did to help successful Republican candidates in Mississippi and Kentucky.

Sixty percent rated Bush positively, but 40 percent rated the president negatively.

"If Breaux campaigns hard for Blanco, he might be able to attract more of the undecided vote," Coker said. "Ultimately, Blanco has to campaign for herself, but Breaux is the best card the Democrats have in their deck."

The race factor

University of Louisiana at Monroe political scientist Pearson Cross said Blanco needs a greater percentage of white votes. "Right now, Kathleen Blanco is not at the magic number that will get a Democrat elected. She is at 29 percent, but needs to be at 32 to 34 of the white vote, and a very strong black turnout that votes for her."

"Louisiana is getting more and more like the rest of the country," Cross said. "I cannot detect in these poll numbers any effect of Jindal's ethnicity, but you can see there may be some anti-woman backlash among black males. Black males are significantly stronger in their support for Jindal than black females."

"Black males are starting to vote like white males," he said.