California Insider

Jim Norman, the polling editor of USA Today, has just sent me a note trying to answer some of the questions that have been raised about the poll released Sunday. I am reprinting most of it here:

"Gallup initially interviewed 1,007 Californians. Of those, 787 identified themselves as registered voters. Of those, 581 were deemed 'probable voters' based on their answers to two questions: (1) how likely they were to vote; and (2) how interested they were in the election.

"When weighting techniques were applied to the entire sample of 1,007, the 581 probable voters became 509. That's how we wound up with 51%, which represents the percentage of the voting-age population, not of registered voters. (Probable voters represented about 70% of self-identified registered voters -- but we know a lot of these people aren't telling the truth.)

"Voter turnout in California, as a percentage of the total voting-age population, for the last four presidential elections, according to the Census:
2000 46%
1996 48%
1992 53%
1988 52%

"Some further information: When looking at the weighted sample of registered voters, 34% were self-identified Republicans (no leaners) and 38% self-identified Democrats. When leaners (those who initially identified themselves as independents but said they leaned to one party or the other) are included, there were 44% Republicans and 48% Democrats. The 4-point gap closely corresponds to the 7-point gap Gallup found for Californians when they combined all of our 2002 polling.

"One other piece of information: Probable voters in this poll are not entirely comparable to Gallup's likely-voter model because the likely-voter model includes a question on how often people have voted in such elections before, and California hasn't had an election like this before."

This was given to me by a person whose motive was to get some good news out there about the state's budget picture, but here are the latest numbers on tax receipts from the state Department of Finance: An internal department memo says taxes due Sept. 15 ran ahead of forecast, and revenues overall for the month are expected to be about $400 million higher than projected. The memo says that income tax withholding was up $120 million, other personal income tax receipts are about $200 million ahead of projections, and corporate tax revenues are expected to end the month up about $75 million. No information is yet available on sales tax receipts for the month.

The California Republican Party board of directors has just voted to endorse Schwarzenegger in the race to replace Davis if he is recalled. I have questioned the value of this endorsement in the past, and even suggested that it might hurt Schwarzenegger as much as it helps him -- by making McClintock out to be a folk hero, or by giving Davis more ammo with which to rally the Democratic base. But people with experience in party politics say I am overlooking the fact that the endorsement allows Arnold to blanket California Republican voters with mail and phone calls reminding them that he is the official choice of their party, and that this alone is worth any blowback he gets from either McClintock or the Democrats. Perhaps. But I think this race might be beyond all that anyway. It really is now a campaign between Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger, as perhaps it was destined to be from the start. If voters feel comfortable with Schwarzenegger, if they sense that he can do this job, then the recall will pass and he will probably win. If Davis can do something in the final week to dislodge that impression, with personal dirt or by making his case that Schwarzenegger is not ready for prime time, then the recall would fail. A Republican Party endorsement at this point seems almost beside the point.

Rep. Darrell Issa is challenging Davis to debate the recall, saying that since he was the major force behind it, Davis should argue its merits with him while staying out of the discussion on question 2. Creative ploy. But I doubt Davis will take him up on it. The success or failure of the recall probably rests now on voter perceptions of Schwarzenegger and whether he can do the job. He is the one Davis has to take down, not Issa.

Here is a link to the USA Today chart on the CNN/USA Today Poll. It shows the 63-35 margin for the recall among "probable voters," which seems to be their word for what others call "likely" voters. Among all registered voters in this poll, the recall leads by a 55-41 margin. There remains some confusion about turnout assumptions. CNN reproted that the poll assumed a 51 percent turnout of eligible voters, which equates to about 70 percent of registered voters. This report from USA Today simply says that the sample of "probable voters" assumes a "51 percent turnout." It doesn't specify whether that is of registered voters or eligible voters. The distinction is very important.

UPDATE: Here are some more clues buried in footnotes spread among the poll charts. The poll appears to be based on 369 Democrats and Democrat/leaners and 356 Republican/Republican leaners out of a sample of 787 registered voters. I don't know what a "leaner" is when you are asking people how they are registered, but leaving that aside, this would mean the sample is 47 percent Democrat and 45 percent Republican. That's more of each group, and far fewer independents, than you normally see in a California poll sample. Beyond that, the poll charts note that there were 286 Republicans considered "most probable to vote." If that is out of the same subset of 581 "probable voters" listed at the bottom of the chart, Republicans as a share of the probable vote would be 49 percent. That's not impossible, if Republicans are supercharged to vote and Dems stay home, but it would certainly explain the huge margin for the recall that the poll found among "probable voters."