CA Poll on Gov

Jerome Armstrong

Looking over the tracking poll numbers that are happening in the California recall election, a few things jump out.

First, among the replacement candidates, support for McClintock went from a static 13-14% to 19% on Saturday. This doesn't show up on the four-day overall trend, but it does show late movement toward the most conservative candidate.

Second, looking at the voter profiles of those polled over the four-day trend. Among those who have voted in the previous 5-6 of the last six elections, Bustamante and Schwarznegger are tied at 34% each. Among those who have voted 0-2 in the last six elections, Bustamante and Schwarznegger leads Bustamante by an outside the moe margin of 39 percent to 23 percent. Findings are similar in the Recall effort. Hence the strategy of driving up Schwarznegger's negatives, and thus driving down Arnold's turnout (iirc, CA does not have same day voter registration either).

Third, as the PR's are noting, support for the recall is shifting to undecided:

On the ballot, the first question you will be asked to vote on reads as follows: “Shall Gray Davis be recalled – that is, be removed – from the office of Governor?” On that question will you:

Definitely Vote Yes: tracked 52, 52, 47, 44 by Saturday.

Probably Vote Yes: tracked 4, 3, 2, 8 by Saturday.

Probably Vote No: tracked 2, 5, 4, 4 by Saturday.

Definitely Vote No: tracked 38, 35, 42, 33 by Saturday.

Not Sure: tracked 4, 4, 7, 12 by Saturday.

So, Davis isn't gaining supporters that will vote no (in fact, he's losing them), but there has been an 8% shift picked up by the tracking poll that's moved from support of the recall to being undecided.

I'd say that Arnold is still in the frontrunner position, but he's clearly in damage control (and it's ugly). Bustamante needs more than 48% support amongst Latino's. Overall it's very volatile and fluid right now, and we have RecallArnoldNow.com just in case...

Posted October 05, 2003 08:41 AM | Comments (74)