The latest PPIC poll, a pretty decent one in California, has Barack Obama leading John McCain by 17 points, 54-37. It's a large sample size including 2003 Californians and 1086 likely voters, so it's a fairly robust poll amongst age groups and ethnicities. And if this data point is correct, Barack Obama looks VERY strong for November.
According to the poll, Obama leads McCain among Hispanics 69-20.
The turnout numbers for the presidential primary were absolutely insane. The official numbers from Secretary Bowen state that 74.26% of registered Democrats in California cast ballots. Now that isn't totally accurate because that includes the DTS voters who pulled Democratic ballots. The real number is expected to be closer to 65%. But even that number is striking. Tim Herdt has a great column today on how this is part of a shift to Democrats larger than just this one election.
Those numbers suggest that Republicans can no longer count on a voter-turnout advantage that in the past has helped GOP candidates overcome the party's minority status in voter registration.
"Republicans have almost always done better because they have the people who always vote," said Republican analyst Tony Quinn. "But this year you had the reverse."
To some degree, the numbers reflect the unusual excitement arising from the contentious nomination battle between Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, an unsettled battle that may linger until the Democratic convention in August. That historic contest helps explain - but does not fully account for - the enormous disparity between the 5.1 million votes cast for Democratic candidates in the state Feb. 5 and 2.8 million cast for Republicans.
Quinn, co-publisher of a data book that breaks down every political district in the state, says the Democrats' February surge in turnout is the continuation of a trend.
It has been conventional wisdom in California that since Republicans outperform their voter registration, compared to Democrats that the voter registration gap is not as significant as it appears. That appears to be changing.
Immediately after the 2004 presidential election results came in many political analysts floated the notion that the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruling that required the state to enact marriage equality was responsible for George Bush's re-election. The hypothesis was that the anti-marriage equality initiatives on the ballot energized the right to turnout and they helped push Bush over the top. That theory was roundly rejected by the actual exit polling data. Unfortunately that myth still lives on and is influencing political analysis to this day. Today it appeared in Peter Schrag's column in the Bee, which was picked up by Boi from Troy and subsequently linked by Marc Ambinder in the Atlantic.
Given its hot-button nature in an election season, there must be a lot of Democrats, from the presidential candidates down, who are hoping that the court follows Jerry Brown's pleadings. To this day, a lot of people believe that the 2003 decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Court striking down that state's ban on same-sex marriages was a major factor in the defeat of John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.
Schrag really needs a phrase in there that recognizes that while people continue to believe that myth, it has been disproved. It is something the bloggers, particularly kos harped about, but did not make it very far into the mainstream, despite the numerical evidence.
As for election news in California, the final two polls have been wildly divergent. SurveyUSA shows a 10-point Clinton lead, while Reuters/Zogby has a 13-point Obama lead. The final Field Poll (the gold standard, as everyone knows) went with a one-point lead to Obamatwo-point lead to Clinton, almost exactly in the middle.
Of course, this only tells part of the story, as Marc Ambinder picked up on my caveat that the district-level delegate system will skew the results, particularly in those even-numbered districts, where a high bar is needed to be scaled to get anything beyond an even split of delegates. And if you expect an early answer about them, think again:
So much for having a hard delegate count on Super Tuesday, we're hearing that CA Dems won't have final delegate tally ready until Friday.
Debra Bowen's mantra has been that she'd rather get the count right than get it fast, so everyone's going to have to wait. I think it's a small price to pay for voting with a paper ballot. By the way, DTS voters, fill that bubble!
The Cook Political Report did the same district-level analysis that I did yesterday, and found a considerably larger amount of variance. Cook thinks that Clinton can get over the 63% bar in those heavily-Latino districts (I'm not so sure). I understand that the 6-delegate seats require 58.3% of the vote to get a 4-2 split, which seems to me to be possible in Barbara Lee's CA-09 and Nancy Pelosi's CA-08, so Obama could be in an even stronger position than I thought. And as Councilman Garcetti said last night, they are paying attention to this stuff, on both sides I would imagine.
Finally, we have somewhat neglected the Republican race. The chic pick is that Romney has come all the way back and will take California. John McCain is apparently worried about it, since it would mean that Romney has an argument to stay in the race. Both candidates scurried back here today for extra bits of campaigning.
And yet McCain's people fear he may lose the popular vote in California to Romney -- even if they haul in the same number of CA delegates -- and that the Super Tuesday story will therefore NOT be the crowning of McCain but rather his failure to put away the game, a failure born of his fractious and sometimes unloving relationship with conservatives, especially those millions of conservatives who listen to and abide by Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, not to mention Limbaugh and Hannity themselves, and a failure that in turn will be viewed as both a symptom and a cause of the historic crack-up of the conservative coalition that has sustained and nourished the Republican Party for a couple generations.
Which would be fantastic, since it would be desirable for their race to be as screwed up as ours. Could the relentless Rush Limbaugh attacks be having an impact? We'll soon find out.
With the budget resolution, the clock starts for the rest of the legislative session in Sacramento. The Assembly and the Senate have until September 14th to pass bills before them and send them to the Governor's desk for signature. And obviously the centerpiece of the session is health care reform. AB8 will be the organ for Democratic legislative leaders and the Governor to come to an understanding about how they want to fix the state's health care crisis. And the people are weighing in and saying that their preferred solution has a different bill number; SB 840.
UPDATE by Brian: Here's the PDF of the relevant health care poll from Field. Over...
Many have remarked upon the new PPIC poll, which shows a trend downward for the Governor's job approval. Brian claimed that the budget impasse is to blame, and the fact that in the last couple days Schwarzenegger has urged in the media for Republicans to pass the plan suggests that's his calculus as well. But I'm not so sure. Considering that the Governor's environmental approval ratings are tracking his overall approval, I think it was the dustup over the California Air Resources Board that dragged him down in recent months. Of the two stories, only the resignations of Robert Sawyer and Catherine Witherspoon got national attention, and it was a direct hit to the issue which Schwarzenegger is trying to use to define himself.
So let's ask ourselves, a propos of Julia's question about blogs and influence, how this seeped into the consciousness of the public, and what role we could play in continuing such, er, seepage.
Hillary Clinton continues to lead California by a significant margin according to the latest SUSA poll. (h/t to Political Wire) Last month's are in parens.
Democrats Republicans
Hillary Clinton 46 (48) Rudolph Giuliani 28 (34) Barack Obama 28 (27) John McCain 21 (21) John Edwards 14 F. Thompson 21 (11) Other 8 Mit Romney 11 (12) Undecided 4 Newt Gingrich 8 (9) Undecided 3 (5)
Today seemed like an appropriate time to release the second half of our presidential poll on the Republicans, given that all of them are attending the debate here. It is split into two polling memos from Mellman, our pollster. The first is on the horserace, post to come later on the issues. The summary says:
Our recent statewide poll shows Rudolph Giuliani currently sporting a 15-point lead in the California Republican primary. Despite Giuliani's lead, however, the race is far from over. His advantage is based importantly, though not completely, on a malleable factor: the belief that he would be the strongest general election candidate. At present, John McCain, a popular second choice candidate, provides the only serious competition. Furthermore, if McCain were no longer running, his supporters would be more likely to move towards Giuliani, while Giuliani supporters are less likely to identify McCain as their second choice. While Giuliani is in a strong position, there is opportunity for other candidates to break through to California Republicans between now and February 5, 2008; the race is very much still up-for-grabs.
We want "Choices" to be your one-stop-shop for tracking the 2008 Presidential candidates on key quality-of-life and economic security issues. Why? Because our polling shows these will be key to determining voters' choices for President, along with the dominant issue of Iraq. But thus far, likely voters report hearing strikingly little from the candidates on anything other than Iraq.
The site should be a two-way street -- a place for voters to track the candidates, and a place for the candidates to speak directly to voters about core quality-of-life issues that so many voters rank as their greatest concerns. So we're engaging the campaigns to encourage them to provide Californians with their plans for quality education, economic security & good jobs, the environment, energy & and sustainability, and health care.
To start, you can read about the strategic research, see the pollster's two memos -- the issues and the horse race.
Why is there a big gap in 2008 California Presidential Democratic Primary in the two most recent poll results?
Hillary Rodham Clinton leads the Democratic presidential candidates in California, with four in 10 likely primary voters saying they will support her, according to a Field Poll released Tuesday.
That is a higher level of support than she has registered in national polling or in a recent statewide poll by the Public Policy Institute of California, which found her leading with 35 percent.
You know it is bad for a president when he gives a war time speech to the troops and gets a tepid response. Bush was in Cali yesterday, down at Fort Irwin, giving a speech. The troops weren't exactly enthusiastic. (h/t to Carpetbagger)
Dozens of camouflage-wearing troops sat quietly at their lunch tables, some joined by family members, as Bush spoke during a visit to this remote base in the high desert of California, where Iraqi-American actors train soldiers to understand Iraq's cultural differences. [snip]
A number of the troops who listened quietly are from units about to rotate into service in Iraq.
One of the biggest news out of the PPIC polling are the numbers on term limits. The voters like them and based on the question asked do not want to see them changed. The results are in sharp contrast to polling done by the respected Binder Research group. The differences can be explained by the questions asked.
The LA City Council released the new living wage proposal last week and it was immediately attacked by big business interests.
This is not an us vs. them issue. Economic growth should mean better quality-of-life for workers as well as CEOs. Unfortunately, that has not been happening as of late. It was something Sen. Webb addressed in his response to the State of the Union:
When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.
It's generally a good idea to invest in economic development and it's an even better idea to invest in quality education, health care and other quality-of-life issues that are the sign of a productive workforce.
If the business lobby wants to view this as some sort of quid pro quo, then I don't see what they're whining about. While we should not prejudge this plan, it looks like a significant investment in business. So, how much does the business lobby want from LA taxpayers? In exchange, all they have to do is just do the fair, smart thing by their lowest-paid workers, which is actually good business as well as good for families and LA.
It is a busy political week, with the State of the State, the first 100 Hours, Arnold's health care proposal and this post may be a bit retro in comparison, but I figured you guys would be interested in a behind the scenes strategic look at how an IE came together. This is cross-posted from the WC Blog.
The campaign that Working Californians was most heavily involved in during 2006 was the Controller race between right-wing Tony Strickland and John Chiang, who was sworn in yesterday. Our independent expenditure campaign, thanks to the support of a diverse list of sponsoring organizations, used a variety of methods including radio ads and direct mail helped carry Chiang to victory. But how effective were we?
The latest Rasmussen Reports election poll in California shows Schwarzenegger trailing State Treasurer Phil Angelides by one percentage point, 45% to 44%. That is the same nominal edge Angelides enjoyed in our February poll, when he led 41% to 40%.
State Comptroller Steve Westly leads 45% to 44%. In our last poll, Schwarzenegger led Westly 39% to 34%. ...
The fact that both Democrats poll essentially the same numbers at this time suggests the race remains a referendum on the incumbent rather than a choice between competing candidates.
The Referendum-on-Arnold model is very different from Matthew Dowd's (public) "it's a choice" strategy for the Schwarzenegger campaign.
