Against that grim backdrop, next year's political contests loom as potentially volatile, but Democrats start out holding the upper hand, the poll found. President Barack Obama retains his popularity in a state that gave him a landslide victory one year ago, with 60 percent approving of his tenure as president. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican struggling in the last year of his term, won the support of only one-third of voters. In the election to replace him, Attorney General Jerry Brown, the only major figure currently angling for the Democratic nomination, was seen favorably by more than four in 10 voters, with roughly one-quarter unfavorable. His likely Republican opponents are much less known; none was seen favorably by more than two in 10 voters, the poll indicated. But there was little confidence that the next governor, whoever he or she may be, would be able to battle California's problems successfully. Voters were split over whether the winning candidate would be able to bring about 'real change.' More than half of voters said that California's problems are long-term in nature and will not ease substantially when the national economy recovers. 'I just feel like we are spinning our wheels,' said Tracey Blair, a mother of two from Los Angeles who described herself, in a follow-up interview, as an independent-minded Democrat. 'I don't feel like it's going anywhere at the moment. ... It's a feeling of -- like we've peaked.' Asked about next year's election for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Barbara Boxer, nearly three in five of the voters surveyed said they 'want a senator who will mostly support' Obama's policies and not one who will seek to block them. Few voters said they knew enough to have an opinion about either of the Republicans running to challenge Boxer, Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore. Voters, however, have a favorable view of Boxer, about in line with where she has stood before her three previous victories in Senate races. The findings come from a new Los Angeles Times/USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences poll. The survey, based on interviews of 1,500 registered voters from Oct. 27 through Nov. 3, was conducted for the Times and USC by two nationally prominent polling outfits, Democratic company Greenberg Quinlan Rosner , and the Republican company Public Opinion Strategies. The results for the full sample have a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points. The poll was the first in a series of surveys over the next year that will look at candidates and issues facing California voters. All told, the survey underscored the differences within California's borders, and between California and the rest of the nation. Despite its Democratic reputation, California continues to be riven with political fault lines. Coastal voters hew more toward the state's left-leaning reputation, but inland voters resemble the reliably conservative tendencies of rural middle America. Young and old hold diametrically opposed views on some issues -- like same sex marriage -- and candidates. The major parties are heatedly polarized, although because Democrats outnumber Republicans, their views tend to carry the day in the overall results. Notably, in this season of political outrage, with its boisterous town halls and bipartisan cat-calls over television and the Internet, Californians did not seem particularly angry. Rather, they demonstrated a sense of civic dejection. 'You get angry when you think you can make a difference and make change,' said Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse L. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC. 'But the predominant mood of the electorate in California seems to be `What's the use?'' As has been the case in other polls in the past year, voters had markedly different views of state and federal political figures. Asked, for example, what emotion they associated with Obama, 43 percent of California voters said 'hope,' another 18 percent said 'disappointment' and 17 percent said 'pride.' The results were lopsidedly partisan. Among Democrats, 56 percent said cited hope, 26 percent said pride and only 9 percent said disappointment; among Republicans 31 percent said disappointment, 22 percent said anxiety and 21 percent said anger. Views about Schwarzenegger and the state Legislature were more universally negative. Forty-five percent said they were disappointed in the governor, a percentage that was similar among Democrats, Republicans and nonpartisan voters. Even for the much-derided Legislature, the predominant emotion cited by voters was disappointment, with only half as many describing themselves as angry. In their overall pessimism, voters drew similar distinctions between the nation and the state. Asked whether California was headed in the right direction or off on the wrong track, only 14 percent said the state was moving in the right direction. That was the lowest such finding since October 1992, when an equal percentage expressed dismay. It was statistically equivalent to the 17 percent level reached just before the 2003 recall swept out Democratic Gov. Gray Davis and installed Schwarzenegger. Altogether, four of five Californians said they felt the state was headed down the wrong track -- slightly worse than in 2003. By comparison, views of the country as whole, while still negative, were somewhat cheerier -- 35 percent of respondents felt the country was on the right track, and 55 percent said it was going awry. Under normal circumstances, the state numbers would suggest tremendous upheaval in next year's elections, but for two circumstances: In the governor's race, there is no incumbent on whom voters can vent their upset. And in the Senate race, the incumbent is not only fairly popular, but is buttressed by voter regard for Obama. Moreover, on the Republican side, the contestants are thus far enigmas to many voters. In the Republican race for governor, former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman was leading former U.S. Rep. Tom Campbell 35 percent to 27 percent, with 10 percent of Republican primary voters siding with state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner. But, on a separate question, two-thirds of voters said they had no impression of Whitman or Campbell, and three-quarters said they knew little about Poizner. (Begin optional trim) Whitman has said that her campaign will be powered in part by women, but so far she was doing better among men -- with 40 percent of men backing her to 30 percent of women. A billionaire, Whitman ran particularly strongly among the wealthy, capturing 43 percent of people who made more than $100,000 annually, to 28 percent of those earning less than $50,000 per year. The results at this early stage in part reflect spending -- Whitman has bombarded the airwaves with ads for months, while Campbell has run a bare bones campaign and Poizner has courted conservatives in small, little-publicized events. 'Meg's purse strings obviously made a difference,' said Neil Newhouse, a Republican pollster who helped craft the survey. But, he cautioned, 'Right now, this race is wide open.' (End optional trim) The GOP senate race was even more wide open, with seven in 10 voters saying they knew too little to have an impression about Fiorina, the former Hewlett Packard chief executive, or DeVore, a conservative assemblyman from Irvine. In a head-to-head matchup, both DeVore and Fiorina won the support of 27 percent of Republican primary voters. But given the fresh nature of the race -- Fiorina just announced her candidacy last week, and DeVore has received little publicity -- neither candidate is yet dominating in areas they have staked out. Fiorina, for example, has gone after women voters, but, like Whitman, was running better among men. DeVore has hammered Fiorina as being a tool of party moderates, but she was doing about as well as he among his conservative targets. On the Democratic side, unofficial gubernatorial candidate Brown -- the state's governor from 1975-83, then presidential candidate, Oakland mayor and now attorney general -- was benefiting both from his well-known name and the race's atmospherics thus far. Brown's favorability margin was the best in the poll aside from Obama -- the percentage of voters who liked him was 17 points higher than those who did not. He was particularly appreciated by older Californians, who are among those most likely to vote. (Begin optional trim) Asked to choose between two statements about Brown, one that said he has 'the experience and knowledge to lead California' and the other that labeled him 'a career politician whose ideas are old,' a slight plurality of voters opted for experience. Even in inland California, the locale most caustic to Brown, almost four in 10 voters chose experience. Similarly, when asked if they prefer a candidate who has experience in business or one with a political background, voters were split. That result, analysts said, suggests that California is not yet willing to cast out all politicians, as it did in 2003 with the election of actor Schwarzenegger. 'It doesn't feel like a change election,' said Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg, who helped craft the survey. 'Jerry Brown has the experience they need -- they are looking for someone who can manage.' The poll underscored why Brown's only announced opponent, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, behind in money and supporters, left the race in late October, while the survey was in the field. According to the poll, almost three in five Californians didn't know enough about him to form an impression. Of those who did, an almost identical percentage liked as disliked him. Like Brown, Boxer has long been a polarizing figure in the state. In this survey, a slightly higher percentage of voters looked kindly on her than on Brown, but a substantially larger percentage of voters disliked her, as well. At this stage of the Senate race, her strong suits appear to be the passion of her supporters, and the broader voter insistence in supporting Obama. (End optional trim) : For details on the methodology used for this poll and information on the polling firms, go to www.latimes.com. Complete results and text of the poll questions are at http://www.gqrr.com/index.php?ID2414 