OS ANGELES - With Democrats poised to flock here next month for their quadrennial convention, uncertainty is casting a shadow over California, once thought to be firmly on Vice President Al Gore's side.
Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush has campaigned 18 days this year in the state with the largest cache of Electoral College votes, and his aides say the vice president had better not take his own support for granted.
''Governor Bush made the decision early on last year that he was not going to write off California,'' said Mindy Tucker, a Bush spokesman.
Rita Lowenthal, a retired social work professor who recently attended a hotel workers protest by the beach in Santa Monica, helps explain why Gore has not secured California.
''He's more disappointing by the day and I'm a really good Democrat,'' said Lowenthal. She said she is vexed by Gore's stand on Elian Gonzalez and irritated by the vice president's ''progress and prosperity'' tour, which includes no talk of those who still suffer from poverty.
Marlena Martinez, on the other hand, offers an example of why the odds remain against Bush taking the state in November.
As the special education teacher browsed for videos in a Latino neighborhood of East Los Angeles, she said she would never vote for a Republican. ''They're not for the minority,'' Martinez said firmly.
Still, enthusiasm for Gore seems weak, and two recent polls of California voters show Bush and Gore in a dead heat. The respected Field poll, on the other hand, gives Gore an 11-point lead.
''The worst thing Gore could do would be to assume that California is his state and that Latino voters will overwhelmingly support him,'' said Mark Baldassare, a senior fellow and pollster at the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank in San Francisco. ''I think Gore has some work to do out here.'' In recent surveys, Baldassare has found that the voters are much closer to Gore on abortion, gun control, and the environment than they are to Bush. But he gives Bush credit for reaching out to non-Republican voters.
''For independent and moderate voters, the attempt to make that link, the attempt to change what has been a fairly dismal record of Republicans connecting with Latino voters, is telling swing voters in this state about the fact that George Bush is trying to be a new Republican,'' said Baldassare.
Democrats insist that Bush doesn't stand a chance here. Instead of seriously making a play for California, they say, he is really executing a tried-and-true political ploy, pretending to challenge his opponent in order to scare him into spending more time and money here than necessary.
For example, Bush has two new television ads featuring his Latino nephew, George P. Bush, speaking in English and Spanish. But neither ad is running in California, only New York.
''If George Bush wants to come in here and waste his time and do head fakes, that's his option,'' said Garry South, senior political adviser to Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat. ''The bottom line is, he's not going to carry California. This is all a little scam they're running. Nobody should confuse it with reality.''
Democrats have been doing well at the polls in recent years. In the last eight statewide elections, Democrats won seven top-of-the-ticket races. And no Republican with antiabortion views has won the state since 1988, when Vice President George Bush carried California over Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis.
''This is a very strongly Democratic state,'' said South.
That, said Tucker, is a dangerous attitude for the Gore camp. Although she acknowledged the uphill nature of the state contest for Bush, Tucker insisted that the governor has been making inroads among women, Latinos, and members of the high-tech community.
''He understands where he's starting from, he has no illusions,'' said Tucker. ''He understands the incorrect images that some people have of the Republican party.''
Republicans in California have a history of targeting immigrants for political gain among Anglo voters. In 1996, then-Governor Pete Wilson brought Bob Dole down to the Mexican border to gaze out over the slums of Tijuana. Dole joined Wilson in demanding more border guards and urging that public education be made off-limits to children of illegal immigrants.
Today, however, about a million Latinos have been added to the voter registration rolls, while the number of Anglo voters has declined by about 100,000, according to the Field poll. About 13 percent of all voters here are Latino, and two out of three Latinos are registered Democrats.
Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante said that no matter how hard Bush tries to reach Latino voters, he still belongs to the party that has long been hostile to them and their interests. ''I think he's going to suffer from it,'' Bustamante said.
Regardless of the statistics, Jim Brulte, the Senate Republican leader from Rancho Cucamonga, said it is the Democrats who are blowing smoke, not the Republicans.
''The closer the race gets, the more vocal the Democrats are about how the state isn't competitive,'' Brulte said. ''I think they're trying to drown out reality with the volume of their rhetoric.''
Most amusing to many Republicans here is that Davis, the popular governor, has been mentioned as a potential running mate for Gore. ''The mere fact that they're even entertaining the idea gives lie to their belief that it's a lock,'' said Brulte.
Gore, however, may get a boost from last month's 5-4 US Supreme Court decision to strike down Nebraska's ban on late-term abortions, analysts say. Voters who favor abortion rights may worry about the slim margin on the court and what will happen when some justices retire and future abortion cases arise.
Lowenthal, for example, is intrigued by Ralph Nader, the Green Party candidate. But she's also concerned about who will be appointing new justices to the court.
''It's really hard for me because I don't want Bush in,'' said Lowenthal. ''I like Nader and I don't think he can win. And I don't want to throw a vote away.''
Her friend Judith Stacey is just as frustrated. She called Gore's comments on the Elian Gonzalez matter ''a travesty,'' ''pathetic,'' and ''hypocritical.''
The choices, she said, ''are abysmal.'' But Stacey, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California, is certain to vote for Gore, not Nader, adding: ''I'm not willing to forfeit my vote in light of the Supreme Court.''
