Poll Analysis: California Voters Happy With Status Quo

      On Tuesday, California voters will not only be making their closely-watched selection for president, but will also be voting for Senate and a series of propositions that are on the ballot, the most controversial of which is an initiative maintaining that marriage is only valid between a man and a woman.
      With perceptions that the national and state economies are strong, and with voters expressing confidence in the stability of their own personal finances, California voters are voicing contentment with the way things are. They do not want to oust a senator they like, nor do they see a need to change California's current laws, as some of the propositions would have them do.

Primary match-ups      On Tuesday, March 7th, all of the candidates in the Senate contest will appear on the same ballot. However, unlike the presidential primary where only the votes of each party's voters count toward choosing that party's delegates, the senatorial race counts all votes in sending the winning candidates in each party to November's general election ticket.
      According to the latest Los Angeles Times poll among voters likely to vote this coming Tuesday, Dianne Feinstein, the incumbent, easily beats the three Republican candidates challenging her on the ballot, the closest of whom finishes 32 points behind her.

      Among all likely voters, the vote is:
*51% Dianne Feinstein
*19% Tom Campbell
*3% Ray Haynes
*3% Bill Horn

      Feinstein receives 77% of the likely Democratic vote (Campbell gets just 7% of Democrats) and even secures 20% of likely Republican voters--more than Republican opponents Ray Haynes and Bill Horn combined (at 11%) get from Republicans. Campbell pulls just over a third of likely Republican voters.
      Feinstein also easily wins both the liberal and moderate vote, and receives more than one in five conservative voters--a group any Republican needs to win in this state where two thirds of likely voters are self-identifying as either liberal or moderate.
Latinos--California's newest voting bloc--are also overwhelmingly coming out in favor of the sitting senator, with nearly six in ten saying that they are planning on voting for her.
      More significantly, at the time the poll was taken, almost a full quarter of likely voters were undecided (34% of Republicans and 14% of Democrats). Should Feinstein's trend of winning one out of every five Republican votes continue, meaning that one out of every five currently undecided Republican voter would choose to vote for Feinstein on Tuesday, she could end up winning a full quarter of the Republican vote.
      As conservatives and Republicans are the only two demographic groups that Campbell is currently winning, he cannot afford to lose a single undecided vote if he wants to be a viable contender come November.

Candidate ratings      Campbell faces other daunting battles in his quest to be a serious opponent.
      Nearly three quarters of Feinstein voters are certain in their vote (26% say they might vote for someone else). In contrast, just half of Campbell's voters are certain they will vote for him, with 49% saying it is possible that they will vote for someone else come primary day.
      Additionally, six out of ten registered voters approve of the job Feinstein has been doing as Senator (compared with 49% approval ratings for California's junior Senator, Barbara Boxer), and even 43% of Republicans approve.
      While almost half of likely voters think that Feinstein is more liberal than they are--a sentiment on which Campbell is basing his jaunt for Senator--more than four out of ten of this same group approve of Feinstein's job as Senator, and nearly a quarter of them plan on voting for her on Tuesday.

Propositions      Of the slew of propositions that will be on the ballot on Tuesday, the poll asked likely voters their awareness and projected vote on three: Gambling on Indian lands; the limit on marriage initiative; and the school bonds amendment.
      The deluge of television advertisements in support of the Gaming on Indian Tribal Lands (Prop 1A) appears to have paid off as three quarters of all likely voters have heard something about this proposition. When told that the amendment would allow the governor to negotiate compacts (subject to legislative ratification) and would give Indians the right to operate slot machines and other games of chance, just under two thirds (64%) of all likely voters said they planned to vote in favor of Prop 1A. Democrats were more likely to be supportive than Republicans (73% to 55%).
      These results are not surprising as this amendment mirrors 1998's Proposition 5, which received 63% of the vote at that time.
      Just over two-thirds were aware of the Limit on Marriage Initiative (Prop 22)--also called the Knight initiative after its sponsor--and when told that this initiative would limit marriage to heterosexual couples, likely voters expressed strong support for it:

      *57% of likely voters said they planned to vote in favor of the Knight Initiative
      *36% oppose the initiative

      More surprising is the demographic breakdown of the vote on this measure. Democrats--ostensible opponents--are instead torn in their intended vote, with 46% supporting Prop 22 and 45% opposing it. Independents and Republicans are more adamant in their support of the initiative, with 59% of independents and 68% of Republicans in favor of it.
      In fact, liberals and those who identified with the gay community „a lot‰ or „some‰ (each of which comprised just a third of likely voters) were the only two demographic groups to come out in opposition to Prop 22.
      Moreover, despite the fact that Feinstein has always been a strong supporter of gay rights, more than four in ten of her voters plan to vote yes on Prop 22 come Tuesday.
      Though the school bonds amendment (Prop 26) involves education and would change the tax law to make it easier to raise taxes by changing the vote requirement to do so from the current two-thirds to a bare majority--two issues voters usually get worked up over -- just over half of likely voters had heard anything about Prop 26. When given the details of Prop 26:

      *50% said they plan to support the amendment
      *38% plan to vote no

      Not surprisingly, likely Republican voters were opposed to Prop 26 while likely Democratic voters were in favor.      Those 65 and older--the group most likely to own property and least likely to have children in school--are the only age group not supporting Prop 26.
      The poll also asked voters their opinion about a proposed program on drug distribution. This experimental program would allow government distribution of drugs to addicts in an effort to curb crime and take money out of the illegal drug trade. Counties and cities within the state would have the option of participating in the program, but would not be mandated to do so. Though this proposal is Tom Campbell's, voters were not informed of the sponsor so as not to pollute their responses.
      Opposition to this idea was vast, with six in ten voters saying they disapproved of the idea and with more than a third saying the proposal would make them less likely to vote for the candidate who suggested it. In fact, 46% of Campbell's own voters said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who proposed his experimental drug program.

How the Poll Was Conducted      The Times Poll contacted 1,872 Californians registered to vote, including 1,053 voters likely to vote in the California primary on March 7th, by telephone February 23-28. Among likely voters, 540 are Democrats and 409 are Republicans.
      Telephone numbers were chosen from a list of all exchanges in the state. Random-digit dialing techniques (RDD) were used so that listed and unlisted numbers could be contacted. The sample was weighted slightly to conform with census figures for sex, race, age, education, region and the Secretary of State's figures for party registration.
      The margin of sampling error for likely voters is plus or minus 3 percentage points, for Democrats it is 4 points and for Republicans it is 5 points. For certain other subgroups the error margin may be somewhat higher.
      An RDD oversample of 1,516 black and Latino residents yielded 619 Latino registered voters, including 245 Latino likely voters, and 124 registered black voters.
      Poll results can also be affected by other factors such as question wording and the order in which questions are presented. The survey was conducted in English and Spanish. Half of the interviewing of the Latino and black oversample was conducted by Interviewing Service of America, Inc.