LOS ANGELES (AP) Two pillars of Democratic Gov. Gray Davis'
past support union members and Hispanics failed him Tuesday as
those voters drifted toward Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, a
survey of voters found.
Amid extraordinary voter discontent with the state's economy and
Davis' job performance, nearly half of Hispanics and a similar
proportion of union members voted to recall the governor, according
to an exit poll conducted for The Associated Press and other news
organizations.
Less than a year ago, nearly two-thirds of Hispanic voters and
voters from union households supported Davis' re-election, and 70
percent of both groups voted for Davis in his first run for
governor in 1988, exit polls found.
This year's statewide survey of 4,172 voters, including Election
Day interviews and a telephone survey of absentee voters during the
past week, was conducted by Edison Media Research of Somerville,
N.J., and Mitofsky International of New York City. Interviews were
conducted in English and Spanish. The sampling error margin was
plus or minus 1.5 percentage points for the full sample, larger for
subgroups.
Since the special election was announced in July, labor unions
had spent millions to push their members to vote no on the recall,
yes on Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and no on Proposition 54, the
racial privacy initiative.
About four in 10 voters from union households supported
Schwarzenegger in the gubernatorial replacement vote even though
during the campaign he called unions ``special interests'' and
vowed to renegotiate union contracts with state workers. About a
third of the electorate were union members or had union members in
their household.
Proposition 54 was defeated, but voters approved the recall of
Davis. In an election sparked by the state's fiscal woes, voters
were split on whether California can resolve its budget deficit
without raising taxes, the poll found.
Eight in 10 voters said the state's economy was not so good or
poor, and seven in 10 disapproved of how Davis was handling his
job. Nearly half of all voters strongly disapproved, and among
them, nine in 10 voted for the recall and seven in 10 voted for
Schwarzenegger, the exit poll found.
Voters were divided on whether Tuesday's election to recall
Davis, which cost about $66 million, was worth the money.
Among Election Day voters, about seven in 10 said they made up
their minds more than a month ago on how to vote on the recall. The
survey offered little evidence that late-breaking allegations that
Schwarzenegger grouped women had much effect on how people voted.
The poll found that six in 10 of all voters valued their
candidate's positions on the issues above the candidate's
leadership or personal qualities.
About two-thirds of voters including a quarter of
Schwarzenegger's own supporters said the movie star, who
participated in only one pre-election debate, didn't address the
issues in enough detail.
More than half of California voters expressed positive feelings
about the state's new domestic partners law, one of the measures
Davis signed in the run-up to the recall. Two in 10 called
themselves enthusiastic about the law, which gives same-sex
partners many of the same rights and responsibilities as married
couples, but at least one in 10 said they are angry about it.
Davis signed the domestic partnership law in September, granting
same-sex couples in California nearly all the same rights and
responsibilities as married spouses. The governor also reversed
position on a bill allowing illegal immigrants to get a California
drivers license and signed that into law. Only a quarter of voters
agreed with that position, the exit poll found.
Fewer than one in 10 Election Day voters reported having
problems with voting equipment or the length of the 135-candidate
ballot.
Edison/Mitofsky conducted the Election Day survey at 60 randomly
selected precincts around California, and the telephone poll of
absentee voters from Sept. 29 through Oct. 5. Results from the
telephone poll were weighted so that those responses represented 26
percent of the sample, the estimated size of the absentee vote.
(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)