Pollsters Discuss Prop 19 and Its
Prospects
October 6, 2010 - Drug
War Chronicle
California's Proposition
19,
the tax and regulate marijuana legalization initiative, is certainly
the most talked about ballot measure in the land this year. It is just
as certainly the most polled of any initiative this year.
No fewer than a baker's dozen polls have surveyed Golden State voters
since May of this year, and at least one more will appear the weekend
before election day. The average for all the polls so far has Prop 19
winning 47.4%, with 43.2% opposed and 9.4% undecided.
The numbers would have been better for Prop 19 except for Monday's
Reuter/Ipsos poll, which bucked the trend to show Prop 19 losing by 10
points. It is one of only three polls that show the measure losing; one
was a Field Poll in July and the other was another Reuters/Ipsos poll
in June.
Here are the results of the 13 polls, beginning with the most recent:

While support for Prop 19 has been
nearly unchanged in the last six months, as this
Talking Points Memo graph
demonstrates, opposition has been declining and the gap between yes and
no votes is growing--except in Monday's Reuters/Ipsis poll.
"What is remarkable is that the polls agree so closely," said Jay Leve,
CEO of SurveyUSA. "Initiatives are among the most difficult things for
pollsters to poll, because many of them are about arcane things that
nobody knows about, like 30-year bond issues, so the polls can be all
over the place. But in this one, the issue is pretty clear, and that's
reflected in the agreement among the polls."
"Our surveys get more accurate the closer we get to election Day," said
Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll, which had Prop 19 trailing
by four points in July, but leading by seven in September. "In our
second survey, we were able to read voters the actual ballot question,"
he noted.
Field will be taking one more poll before the election, DiCamillo said.
"We will release our final poll the weekend before the election," he
announced. "It will be much more insightful."
But with less than a month to go, things are looking pretty good for
Prop 19. Liberals, Democrats, and young voters consistently showed
strong support for Prop 19 across all the polls, suggesting, somewhat
paradoxically, that voters motivated by support for Prop 19 could help
the campaigns of Democrats gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown and Sen.
Barbara Boxer, both of whom have come out in opposition to
legalization. Likewise, if surging Brown and Boxer campaigns bring out
Democratic and liberal voters, they are going to be likely to vote for
Prop 19 despite the positions of their gubernatorial and senatorial
candidates.
But Republicans, who oppose Prop 19 by margins of 2-1, are also
counting on a massive turnout. If the primary is a reliable indicator,
they could see just that. In 2008, Democrats made up 42% of the
electorate and Republicans just 30%, but Republican enthusiasm this
year could close that gap. In the primaries, where only 33% of the
electorate voted, 44% of Republicans did, while only 32% of Democrats
did. A strong GOP turnout combined with weak turnout among Democrats
could spell doom for the measure.
If polling for some groups has been consistent, that hasn't been the
case for others, especially black voters. For example, at one point,
the Field Poll had Prop 19 losing by 12 points among black voters,
while just weeks later Public Policy Polling had it up by 36 points.
Black voters only account for 6% of the state's electorate, so the
results may suffer from too small a sample size.
Pollster Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight.com had
another possible explanation, one he called the "Broadus Effect," after
one Calvin Broadus -- better known as the rapper and major pot
aficionado, Snoop Dog. It's a variation on the "Bradley Effect," named
for former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who lost a mayoral race
despite leading in the polls before election time.
The "Bradley Effect" posits that polls can be skewed by respondents who
reply with what they think are the politically correct answers, rather
than what they really think. Silver noted that automated robo-phone
polls were showing higher support among blacks than polls done with
human poll-takers.
"This might also explain why the split is larger among black and
Hispanic voters," Silver wrote. "Marijuana usage is almost certainly
more stigmatized when associated with minorities, and drug possession
arrests occur much more frequently in minority communities. This is in
spite of the fact that rates of marijuana consumption are only a
smidgen higher among blacks than among whites, and are somewhat lower
among Hispanics."
Pollsters are congenitally cautious about making predictions on actual
election results, but both DiCamillo and Leve made heavily hedged
predictions. "Usually, the burden of proof is on the proposition," said
DiCamillo. "It's always on the yes side to make its case. In this case,
there is a lead, but it's not quite at 50% plus one. Most initiatives
do get a few percentage points out of the undecideds, so you'd expect
this one to be favored for passage, but it's not a slam dunk."
Undecideds would have to break dramatically toward a no vote for the
initiative to lose if the poll average today holds until Election Day.
With Prop 19 at nearly 48% and undecideds at just under 10%, it would
need to pick up just better than one out of five of those voters to get
over the top.
And DiCamillo says Prop 19's prospects are good, barring some sort of
October surprise. "If somebody came in and started advertising heavily
against it, that could change things," he warned. So far, there's been
no sign of that, but there is still time for a late TV ad campaign.
SurveyUSA's Leve was only a bit more definitive. "That it's maintaining
a 10-point lead is good for the initiative, but that it's having
trouble getting that 50% plus one is not," said Leve. "It's sort of a
glass half full thing. If I was in Las Vegas and I was a betting man,
I'd bet on it to win," said Leve. "But I'd only bet money I could
afford to lose."
With less than a month out Prop 19 is leading by an average of more
than four points. A historic victory for marijuana legalization may be
coming into view, but Election Day will be a nailbiter, and its going
to depend on turnout and those undecideds.