The Public Policy Institute of California’s latest poll shows that as interest has grown in the May 19 special election, opposition has grown to the ballot measures with five of the six headed for defeat:

“The voters who are really tuned in are really turned off,” PPIC president, CEO and survey director Mark Baldassare. “They see the state’s budget situation as a big problem, but so far, they don’t like the solution.”

PPIC found voters most likely to be following news of the special election very closely are older than age 55, men and those who disapprove of the governor and legislature.

That latter category would be most of you, apparently: The poll found the governor (34 percent) and legislature (12 percent) at almost-record-low approval ratings. Californians feel less trust in state government now than PPIC has ever seen: Just 16 percent of likely voters say they can trust the government in Sacramento to do what is right just about always (2 percent) or most (14 percent) of the time. Among Californians overall, 23 percent hold this view (4 percent always, 19 percent most of the time).

But it’s not all gloom and doom. For the first time since PPIC started asking in 2003, most Californians – 57 percent – and most likely voters here – 52 percent – think the nation is generally headed in the right direction. That’s a marked increase even from when January, when it was 32 percent of Californians and 31 percent of likely voters. (Apparently, yes he can!)

The findings are based on a telephone survey of 2,005 adult Californians interviewed from April 27 through May 4 in English or Spanish; the margin of error all adults is ±2 percent, and for the 1,080 likely voters, it’s ±3 percent.

More PPIC tidbits, after the jump…
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The Public Policy Institute of California’s February statewide survey shows that while Californians strongly favor pro-choice public policies, the are shifting ground on their views about restrictions.

Since January 2000, the percentage of Californians who oppose limits on access to abortion has dropped 10 points to 71 percent while those who back abortion restrictions has increased 8 points to 27 percent.

In other findings,Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s approval rating drops to 33 percent, down from 40 percent in January. The state Legislature’s approval rate remained at a record-low 21 percent. By comparison, President Barack Obama enjoys a 70 percent approval rating for his first month in office.

Other results:

– 66 percent support the retention of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that provides a woman’s right to access to legal abortions.

– 68 percent would support a state law that requires parents to be notified before a minor obtains an abortion. This is curious finding since voters have rejected three statewide parental notification initiatives.

– 89 percent believe access to birth control and contraceptives is an important factor in the reduction of unwanted pregnancies but only 46 percent were aware that the federal government funds these services for the poor.

– Only 9 percent believe schools do more than enough when it comes to teaching sex education.

– 51 percent say immigration is the biggest reason for California’s population growth and 52 percent say that growth is a bad thing for them and their families.

– 42 percent say two is the ideal number of children for a family.

– 44 percent say the 2010 gubernatorial candidates’ views on abortion are very important to them.

The PPIC conducts monthly surveys on a variety of public policy and political issues. For the full February survey, visit PPIC’s web site.

Capitol Weekly just published results of its quarterly survey and apparently, Californians like the idea of a part-time Legislature and open primaries.

Here is the top of the Weekly’s story:

About half of Californians support the concept of a part-time Legislature, and are similarly divided about changing state elections to make them less partisan, according to a new Capitol Weekly/Probolsky Research Poll.

The survey also found that more than half of those polled – 53 percent – believe that at least some environmental regulations should be eased in order to expedite infrastructure construction projects and take advantage of a looming federal economic stimulus package. Estimates of California’s potential share of that federal funding range from $37 billion to $42 billion, or more.

Click here to read the full poll.

Pollsters interviewed 752 residents by telephone. The poll has an error rate of plus/minus 3.7 percent.

Per the Public Policy Institute of California’s new poll, Californians prefer Obama over McCain by 10 points and appear unlikely to support Prop. 8, the statewide gay marriage initiative:

California’s likely voters prefer the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joseph Biden to Republican contenders John McCain and Sarah Palin by 10 points, but they’ll be watching closely to see how the candidates perform in a series of televised debates before marking their ballots. Eight in 10 say the debates, which begin Friday, will be very important (38%) or somewhat important (41%) in deciding who gets their votes, according to a statewide survey released today by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) with funding from The James Irvine Foundation.

Click here for the full press release or read more for the release text. Read the rest of this entry »

Two new polls by the Survey and Policy Research Institute at San Jose State University offer insight into the state of voters’ minds on the presidential primary, term limits, residency for illegal immigrants and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s job performance.

A poll on the presidential primary candidates finds Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani leading in their respective party primary contests.

A second poll shows that a majority of voters favor a measure headed for the February ballot that would alter state legislative term limits. It is more popular among Republicans and Independents than among Democrats.

“The partisan and ideological breakdowns suggest that the ballot language, written by Secretary of State Jerry Brown, emphasizing the overall reduction in years a legislator may serve,” said survey director Melinda Jackson, a political science professor at San Jose State University, “is persuasive to voters who otherwise would be likely to oppose the measure because it also increases the amount of time a legislator may spend in either house.”

The California Term Limits Defense Fund, which opposes the measure through U.S. Term Limits, quickly seized upon the results to say it “confirms both the deception at the heart of the efforts by (Senate President Pro Tem) Don Perata and (Assembly Speaker) Fabian Nunez to fool the voters into weakening term limits and the fundamental flaw of their initiative.”

UPDATE: The proponents of the term limit measure sent out a statement in response to U.S. Term Limits:

“The San Jose State poll is the 4th independent, statewide poll that shows this initiative passing with a clear majority,” said Gale Kaufman, chief strategist for the measure. “This confirms what our own polling indicates and shows a clear and continuous pattern of support for this initiative. With every poll that shows us well ahead, the opposition finds itself grasping at straws to explain to their out-of-state paymasters why the voters of California support our initiative.”

In other issues, a majority of Californians support the formation of a legal path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. They also give Schwarzenegger high marks, with 61 percent of California voters saying they approve of his job performance.

For the full poll data, margin of error and methodology, click on the links above to each poll.

Playboy magazine commissioned a poll to address what it called a common misconception that the majority of its readers are liberal Democrats.

Really? People think only Democrats read Playboy? Who knew?

Playboy surveyed 1,000 people. Half were drawn from a nationally representative sample of adults age 21 and older, while the other half came from its subscriber rolls.

The odd premise aside, the magazine’s “Playboy Voter” feature in this month’s edition outlined the following conclusions from its survey:

– 79 percent of those surveyed voted in the 2004 presidential election, 15 percentage points higher than the national average.

– 36 percent of its readers are Republicans compared to 25 percent Democrat, 25 percent independent and 14 percent other parties.

– 72 percent of Playboy readers favor stem cell research compared with 61 percent of the non-reader group sampled.

– Half of Playboy’s readers oppose a ban on gay marriage, double the number in the non-reader group.

This is the first of a two-part look at voting patterns of Playboy readers. The second segment will appear in its November edition, according to a release from the magazine.

Normally, here’s where I would provide a link to the magazine story but in this case, the link provided in the press release sends you to a subscription sign-up site and a large picture of a naked woman.

So, I’ll leave it up to you to navigate to the full poll lest I run afoul of anyone’s moral sensibilities or trigger site-blocking software.

A poll commissioned by US Term Limits, a national group promoting term limits, found that Californians remain deeply attached to term limits. No big surprise here.

An Aug. 3 poll conducted by Pulse Opinion Research found that 69 percent of those questioned would be less likley to support a politician who tries to weaken term limits. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Interestingly, the poll also found that 67 percent supported cut-backs on the perks that state politicans earn.

California has had term limits since 1990, when voters enthusiastically endorsed the concept in a ballot initiative.

Recently, some lawmakers have proposed tinkering with term limits as part of redistricting reform. The idea is to allow politicians to serve a total of 12 years in the state Legislature in one or both of its bodies, the Senate and the Assembly.

Today, lawmakers may serve no more than three terms in the Assembly and two terms in the Senate, a condition that has produced an annual rotation of politicians jockeying for position to run for the next seat when they are termed out.

But respondents in the poll overwhelmingly opposed it — 63 percent said no while 27 percent supported the idea.

In other poll findings:

40 percent believe lawmakers’ annual salary of $110,800 is too high while half say it’s about right

33 percent oppose cutting lawmakers’ wages by 20 percent, while 52 percent favor it.

66 percent oppose the per diem lawmakers receive in addition to their salaries, roughly $30,000 a year, and the same number of folks would vote to eliminate it.

The public is crabby.

Two Field Polls released Sunday and today (in Adobe PDF format) revealed record-low approval ratings in California for President George Bush and continued dissatisfaction with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature.

Just 28 percent of those polled approve of Bush’s job performance, “the lowest rating given to any sitting U.S. president in California since August 1974, shortly before Richard Nixon resigned from office following the Watergate scandal,” wrote pollsters Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field.

Schwarzenegger received a 41 percent approval rating while 26 percent approve of the Legislature’s performance.

We’ll see if the public expresses its angst on Tuesday, the only poll that really counts: Election Day.