Californians have lost some of their zeal to recall Gov. Gray Davis, according to new polling, but the change of heart may be too little, too late to keep the second-term Democrat in office.

"He's running out of time," said Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo.

The nonpartisan poll released Monday also shows Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante edging ahead of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. He now leads the actor 30 percent to 25 percent in the replacement contest.
And it explains why Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock, a favorite among conservatives, is under increasing pressure to drop his candidacy in the Oct. 7 election. If the third-place candidate dropped out, pollsters believe that Schwarzenegger would assume the lead.

Four weeks from election day, 55 percent of likely voters plan to recall Davis. That's down from 58 percent in August and reverses a five-month arc of support to remove a governor in midterm, something that has happened only once before in the nation's history.

"While we still have a lot of work to do, things are trending in the governor's direction," said Davis spokesman Peter Ragone. "As voters learn more and more about the recall, they're starting to back away from it."

Pollsters say Davis has his work cut out for him. Of likely voters, just 40 percent say they want to retain the governor. This close to an election, undecided voters often stick with the status quo, but at a steady 5 percent they would not be enough alone to put him over the top.

"He's got to make up a 15-point deficit in four weeks," DiCamillo said. "At least he's moving in the right direction, but he has to make more inroads within his own party. That's the key."

The poll surveyed 505 likely voters and has a margin of error of 4.5 percentage points. It was conducted from Wednesday to Sunday, starting just after the first major televised debate of the race. In that debate, Bustamante was criticized for taking large donations from Indian tribes with casino interests. Pundits gave McClintock's performance high marks and concluded it would hurt Schwarzenegger.

Schwarzenegger took heat for skipping the debate. Then women's groups protested him, citing among other complaints a magazine interview from the 1970s in which the former bodybuilder described using casual sex as a stress reliever.

Meanwhile, Davis was talking to voters in town hall meetings and launching his first television ads, in which Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., urges Democratic voters to reject the recall. In the next week, former President Clinton is expected to appear with Davis at a campaign event in Southern California.

The poll suggests Davis has little hope of swaying Republicans. Nine in 10 want him removed. So do nearly six in 10 independent and third-party voters.

Meanwhile, nearly one in four fellow Democrats favors his recall.

Voters believe Davis mismanaged the state's energy crisis and misled them about the scope of state budget problems. They say a new governor could change the state's direction. At the same time, voters told pollsters they are concerned about recalling someone who was fairly re-elected less than a year ago, and they said many of California's problems are not Davis' fault.

The San Francisco Bay Area is the only place in the state where a solid majority of voters -- 63 percent -- wants to keep Davis in office. In Los Angeles County, the other Democratic stronghold, 57 percent of likely voters favor the recall.

Union leaders are vocal in their opposition to the recall, but their membership isn't all on board. Among union households, 43 percent of likely voters say they favor recall.

Bustamante's support from fellow Democrats swelled in the last month, from 48 percent to 59 percent, helping him edge forward from what was a statistically insignificant lead of three points over Schwarzenegger. But the lieutenant governor faces some stumbling blocks. His negative rating jumped from 40 percent to 49 percent among overall voters in the last month.

And 16 percent of Democrats say they're voting for someone other than Bustamante, Schwarzenegger or McClintock. That suggests two other candidates, independent Arianna Huffington and the Green Party's Peter Camejo, combined, could draw away from Bustamante as McClintock has from Schwarzen-egger.

Bustamante's campaign manager, Richie Ross, said too much about the election is up in the air to draw any conclusions. "It's the fourth inning, and we have a one-run lead," he said. "We're still a long way from the champagne."

In a race with 135 names on the replacement ballot, only six candidates have any standing in the polls: Bustamante, Schwarzenegger, McClintock, Republican Peter Ueberroth, Huffington and Camejo. Ueberroth has 5 percent support; Huffington, 3 percent; and Camejo, 2 percent.

Under pressure to clear the field for Schwarzenegger, Republican Bill Simon dropped out of the race last month. But the poll shows Simon's departure mostly helped McClintock, whose support surged from 9 percent to 13 percent.

"If you add up the numbers between Arnold and Tom and Peter, it's a commanding lead over Cruz," said Schwarzenegger spokesman Sean Walsh. "Many Republicans are raising concerns about Mr. McClintock's continuing in this race. The more people in the race, the more difficult it becomes."

The McClintock campaign showed signs it is digging in. Campaign director John Feliz is "perplexed that the ones with the momentum are having to face various calls to get out of the race because somehow we're spoiling it for Arnold."

He challenged Schwarzenegger to make a case for McClintock to drop out at a Republican Party convention later this week.

"We really haven't heard why we should drop out," Feliz said. "The only thing I've figured Arnold has is a high name ID because he's a celebrity, and a lot of money. I hope that's not his plan to become governor.

"We're concerned that a fictional character is running for governor. We want to know if he's real. And until then, we shouldn't have to think about dropping out of the race."