KMAX: News of the West

SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) A poll released late Saturday indicated that the support for recalling Gov. Gray Davis might be slipping, although it still showed most voters favored removing him.

The Knight Ridder poll found that voters still favor the removal of Davis, 54 percent to 41 percent. The percentage of people saying they would definitely vote to oust Davis, however, declined each day the poll was conducted.

The poll, conducted Wednesday through Saturday, was conducted by Elway/McGuire Research and surveyed 1,000 voters by telephone. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percent.

``What looks like is happening is people who thought they were going to vote yes are unsure,'' said Stuart Elway of the firm that conducted the poll for Knight Ridder.

Arnold Schwarzenegger still led among recall candidates, according to the Knight Ridder poll results posted late Saturday on the San Jose Mercury News Web site. The Austrian-born actor retains a healthy lead in support over the lone Democrat in the race, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, 36 percent to 29 percent, according to the poll.

The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that six women claimed Schwarzenegger groped or sexually harassed them between 1975 and 2000.

Schwarzenegger sought to turn the tables and go on the offensive Saturday, denouncing sexual harassment allegations as untrue and painting them as a late-stage effort to derail his campaign.

``They're trying to torpedo my campaign. They're trying to make me look bad out there so that people vote no,'' Schwarzenegger said during a campaign trail stop in Clovis.

Prior to the Times story about Schwarzenegger, voters polled by that newspaper supported the recall by a 56 percent to 42 percent margin. Those results followed a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll released last Sunday that showed 63 percent of voters supported recalling Davis and 35 percent opposed the recall.