A new Los Angeles Times poll of likely voters in California created quite a stir this past weekend. The poll showed that Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante is now ahead of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the race for the governor's job if the controversial recall measure is approved; this is a decided switch from the initial California polls showing Schwarzenegger ahead.
The Times was careful to point out that changes in poll numbers are to be expected in the fluid California recall situation. Plus, as is always the case, the candidates and their supporters are directly involved in attempting to change voters' minds.
But there are some methodological reasons why Bustamante may have done better in the recent Los Angeles Times poll than in previous surveys. One has to do with the way in which the candidates' names are read to respondents. The California statutes are silent on how candidates are to be identified on the actual ballot, but for the Oct. 7 election, the Secretary of State in California decided that each candidate will be identified by his or her party affiliation, and by occupation.
Early polls, including the initial CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll in California, simply read the names of the individuals involved and their occupations. This almost certainly helped Schwarzenegger because of his existing high name recognition, and probably hurt Bustamante, who was unknown to some percentage of likely Democratic voters in California.
The Los Angeles Times poll, on the other hand, read both the party identification and occupation of each of the eight candidates included in the poll: "As you may know, you still get a chance to cast a vote for one of the replacement candidates, even if you voted NO, not to recall Governor Davis, or didn't vote on the recall at all. So, if the special recall election were being held today, for whom would you vote: Lieutenant Governor Cruz Bustamante, a Democrat; state Senator Tom McClintock, a Republican; actor and businessman Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican; businessman Bill Simon, a Republican; financial investment advisor Peter Miguel Camejo, Green Party candidate; columnist and author Arianna Huffington, an independent; businessman Peter Ueberroth, a Republican; or publisher Larry Flynt, a Democrat?"
The only two Democrats on the list are Bustamante and Hustler magazine publisher Flynt. Bustamante clearly benefited from being identified as the only credible Democratic candidate in the poll's list. In fact, the Times analysis shows that Bustamante gets 65% of the Democratic vote.
On the other hand, Schwarzenegger was one of four Republicans whose names were read to respondents. Schwarzenegger only gets 39% of the Republican vote, while McClintock gets 21%, Simon gets 12% (Simon has since dropped out of the race), and Ueberroth gets10%. Schwarzenegger splits the independent vote with Bustamante: 20% to 20%.
All of this helps explain why Schwarzenegger is behind in the poll overall (35% of all likely voters opt for Bustamante and 22% for Schwarzenegger). It also helps Bustamante that 34% of California's voters identify as Democrats, 31% identify as Republican, and 35% identify as independent, with independents leaning more toward the Democratic Party than the Republican Party.
To be competitive, Schwarzenegger will need to corner a higher percentage of the Republican vote in the state (Simon's leaving may help, although McClintock appears to be the most viable Republican challenger in addition to Schwarzenegger), while at the same time doing better than Bustamante among independents.
And then there's voter turnout, which is almost always key to the outcome of an election. The assumption is that Republicans are most interested in recalling Davis and are therefore the most likely to turn out regardless. That means that a higher turnout will mean more Democratic voters, which will probably help Davis (and/or Bustamante).
The election last year, in which Gray Davis was elected, had a fairly low turnout by California standards -- 51%. A San Jose Mercury analysis reports that there have been much higher turnouts in the last 11 years -- from 75% in the hotly contested 1992 presidential election (in which independent candidate Ross Perot motivated many voters who do not usually turn out to go vote) to 60% in the gubernatorial election in 1994.
Public Schools
Schools are back in session for many American children this week, and the annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes Toward the Public Schools shows that 55% of parents of public school children give their local schools a grade of A or B. That's not a rousing vote of confidence, but remains higher than the 48% of all Americans (regardless of whether they have a child in school) who give their local public schools an A or B rating. It's also much higher than the 26% who give the nation's public schools an A or B.
Ratings of the public schools in Americans' communities are about the same now as they have been over the past four years, but higher than in the 1990s and 1980s.
The poll shows that people believe money is the biggest challenge facing the schools today. "Lack of funding" is mentioned by 25% of the national sample as the biggest problem "… the public schools of your community must deal with," followed by 16% who cite lack of discipline, 14% who say overcrowded schools, and 9% who mention use of drugs.
The Economy
The Dow Jones Industrial average closed at 9,317 on Monday. Although this represents a 31-point loss for the day, the Dow Jones remains 419 points higher than its 8,898 close at the end of the first business day in June.
Despite this climb in the market, investors are actually slightly less optimistic now than they were in June, according to the monthly Gallup/UBS Index of Investor Optimism. The overall Index value has been fluctuating significantly over the past five months, going from 66 in April, to 42 in May, to 77 in June, to 54 in July, to 61 this month.
The good news: these values are generally higher than they were earlier this year and late last fall. Indeed, the Index fell to single digits in February and March.
Still, the percentage of investors who say the market will be higher one year from today (60%) is basically unchanged from most of the previous months of 2003.
Civil Rights
This Thursday marks the 40th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech delivered on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. As King said in what was to become one of the most famous speeches ever delivered: "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.'"
King, who was assassinated in 1968, would no doubt have expected vast improvement in the treatment of blacks by this time in the nation's history, but a Gallup analysis reveals a decidedly mixed report on the status of blacks.
Most blacks do say that civil rights for blacks have improved in this country in their lifetimes -- and that holds for younger blacks below the age of 40 as well as those who are older. But a majority (59%) of blacks remain dissatisfied with the way they are treated in society. A majority of blacks also feel they are discriminated against at least a few times a year or more, and a very substantial 81% say that blacks do not have equal job opportunities compared to whites.
There's a vast racial gulf in these attitudes. A majority of whites say they are satisfied with the way blacks are treated in society and there is a 38-point gap between the perceptions of whites and blacks on the question about equal job opportunities.
Labor Day
Next Monday is Labor Day, the annual celebration of the nation's workers. Labor Day was first celebrated on Sept. 5, 1882.
This marks a fitting time to note that support for labor unions is robustly high in this country -- despite the fact that only a small minority of Americans are themselves actually members of unions. Sixty-five percent of Americans approve of labor unions -- higher than the union approval rating from either 2002 or 2001, and roughly the same as in 1999. But even the 1999 levels are up from previous measurements taken earlier in the 1990s, the 1980s, and even the 1970s. The last time before 1999 that support for unions was this high was in 1967 (although Gallup's measurement of approval of unions has been sporadic). These generally high approval levels occur despite the fact that only 9% of adults are members of labor unions. (Another 9% say that someone else in their household is a member of a union.)
Traditionally, unions have provided one of the major bases of support for Democratic candidates. (Democratic candidate Richard Gephardt has already received the endorsement of the Teamsters union for his presidential bid.) Therefore, it's no surprise that Gallup's August 2003 poll shows the traditional differential in approval of unions by party: 75% of Democrats approve of unions, compared to 69% of independents and 50% of Republicans.
Most workers won't be laboring too hard on Labor Day; they'll have the day off. However, too many days off could actually be a problem for Americans, 56% of whom say they get a sense of identity from their jobs. About 43% say they just work for the paycheck.
Top Colleges
The new U.S. News and World Report rating of the top colleges in the country was released over the weekend. The complex (and controversial) rating system used by the magazine finds that Princeton and Harvard are the top two major universities in the nation, followed closely by Yale, MIT, and Cal Tech.
A recent Gallup Poll, on the other hand, shows that no school approaches Harvard in terms of sheer top-of-mind name recognition. Asked to name the best college or university in the United States, 24% of Americans name Harvard as their first or second choice, far ahead of Stanford and Yale, named by 11% each, and MIT, named by 6%.