Both sides forecasting victory in Calif. recall

LOS ANGELES -- As the number of women contending that Arnold Schwarzenegger sexually fondled them grew to 15, advisers on both sides of the gubernatorial recall effort insisted yesterday that they were within reach of victory, despite an array of unpredictable factors and last-minute polling data indicating tomorrow's election is too close to call.

Schwarzenegger, the Republican front-runner, said a spate of recent scandal stories -- alleging that he had groped women and once expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler -- had not slowed his momentum significantly, an assertion backed up by a recent public poll that indicated the recall will pass.

But for the first time in weeks, advisers to Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, offered an optimistic outlook of their own, saying that with each new allegation about unseemly conduct by the actor, the public's support for the recall had dropped. "More people have a negative opinion of Arnold than a positive one now," said Democratic pollster Ben Tulchin, who conducted internal surveys for the antirecall effort.

Nonetheless, Democrats acknowledged that time to dramatically shift public opinion might have run out. On both sides, pollsters said their task had become almost impossible in the final hours: The combination of late-breaking negative stories, a huge influx of first-time voters registering for the race, and the lack of precedent for a recall in the state left strategists wary of predicting how events will unfold tomorrow.

Weekend polling is particularly unreliable, strategists said, casting doubt on figures that indicated voters were narrowly divided over whether to recall Davis and favored Schwarzenegger over the other recall candidates. At the same time, the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur began last night at sundown and lasts through tonight, adding another wild card for telephone pollsters trying to reach potential voters.

"Public opinion is very much in flux right now," Tulchin said. Concerning the scandalous stories about Schwarzenegger, he said: "There are only a few days left. It's a late-breaking development, and it may be too late. But the bottom line is, whereas three days ago I think everyone assumed the `yes' [on the recall] side was going to win, now the outcome is very much in doubt."

More than 2 million ballots already have been cast, out of a total of 3 million absentee ballots that were issued. More than 11 million voters may participate in tomorrow's election, compared with about 7 million who voted in November in the race that put Davis in the governor's mansion for a second term.

Results of an independent poll released Saturday by Knight Ridder indicated that although 54 percent of those surveyed said they wanted to see Davis removed from office, only 44 percent said that is definitely how they will vote -- an 8-point drop on that question, down from 52 percent, from the Wednesday before. But between Friday and Saturday, advisers to Schwarzenegger said, they had seen a bounce-back for their candidate after a forceful Republican counterattack condemning Davis as the culprit behind the negative stories and criticizing the Los Angeles Times as his accomplice. The newspaper was the first to publish allegations of Schwarzenegger's sexual misconduct, and printed four new accounts yesterday from alleged victims.

But results of another poll, released yesterday by the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank affiliated with Stanford University, found Schwarzenegger firmly in the lead. The survey of 956 registered voters, taken between Sept. 26 and Saturday, found that support for the recall dropped slightly since early September, to 59 percent from 62 percent. But if the recall passes, 43 percent of those polled said they would vote for Schwarzenegger, compared with 30 percent for Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante and 13 percent for Tom McClintock, a Republican state senator.

"Even though we only have a limited number of recent interviews, we're not seeing any signs of greater support for `no on recall' or weakened enthusiasm for Arnold Schwarzenegger in the aftermath of the Los Angeles Times story," said Shanto Iyengar, a communications professor at Stanford.

Bustamante and McClintock campaigned across the state yesterday, continuing to dismiss suggestions that they might drop out of the race to give other candidates from their parties a boost. Davis campaigned in Los Angeles, signing a health care bill requiring employers to give their workers coverage. Schwarzenegger held a "march on Sacramento," leading thousands of supporters to the edge of the state Capitol steps.

Schwarzenegger took a stage outside the Capitol and spoke for eight minutes but avoided mentioning the scandals that have dogged him in the last week. Instead, Schwarzenegger stuck to his campaign platform.

Special interest groups in Sacramento will "go crazy because they know I'm here to kick some serious butt," he told the crowd.

Protesters lined the sidewalk outside the event, waving signs that read "Arnold -- Hands off California" and "Arnold: Serial Groper."

"He really doesn't have a place running for office, let alone holding office," said Maritza Giberga, a retired educator from Sacramento who was holding a "Terminate Sexism" sign. "What kind of role model is he?"

Giberga said she planned to vote no on the recall and yes for Bustamante.

In television appearances yesterday, Schwarzenegger kept up his parallel lines of argument: that he does not remember exactly what he did decades ago and is sorry if he offended anyone; and that, at the same time, the Los Angeles Times accounts are not entirely true.

Davis did not shy from criticizing Schwarzenegger for his alleged misconduct. "Fifteen women have now come forward indicating they have serious problems with Mr. Schwarzenegger," Davis said. "The toll apparently is mounting daily. These accusations, if true, are very disturbing and raise serious questions about whether Mr. Schwarzenegger should be California's governor. . . .Are all 15 women and their families lying?" California Assemblyman Mark Leno, Democrat of San Francisco, announced that he plans to introduce legislation to increase penalties for those who sexually harass women in the workplace. He is calling it "Arnold's Law." Kornblut reported from Los Angeles, and Gaither reported from Sacramento. Kornblut can be reached at akornblut@globe.com