AM Alert: Why Prop. 8 passed (and other post-mortem polling)

SacBee: Capitol Alert ^ | 12/4/8 | Shane Goldmacher

[SmithL]

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass is rounding out her leadership team. The latest additions: Paul Krekorian and John Pérez.

The Public Policy Institute of California has released a survey of voters looking into why Californians voted for or against Propositions 1A (high speed rail), 4 (abortion notification), 8 (gay marriage) and 11 (redistricting).

Find the full poll results on Capitol Alert's PPIC page.

Most of the results are unsurprising. Evangelical Christians supported Proposition 8 at an 81 percent clip, while voters without a college degree (62 percent) were more likely to vote "yes" than college graduates (43 percent).

One notable number is that a substantially higher percentage of Republicans (77 percent) supported Proposition 8 compared to Proposition 4 (66 percent).

That extra turnout of the GOP base was among the many factors contributing to the measure's success.

Voters have lots of criticism for the initiative process, with 75 percent saying too much money is spent, 63 percent saying ballot wording is confusing and 52 percent saying there are just too many propositions.

But they're satisfied (67 percent) overall with the process.

More importantly, they trust themselves more than their elected officials.

A full 4 percent of respondents said they have a "great deal" of trust and confidence in the state's elected officials.

[Patrick1]

Four percent have a trust in their elected officials but keep re-electing them! Go figure.

[Reaganesque]

From the report:

OPPOSITION GREATER AMONG MORE–EDUCATED, AFFLUENT, AND YOUNGER VOTERS. Nearly seven in 10 voters with a high school education or less, and 57% of those with only some college, supported Proposition 8, while 57% of voters with a college degree opposed the measure.Similarly, a majority of voters in lower‐income households (63%), and half of those in middle‐income households (52%), voted for the measure, whereas over half of those in higher‐income households (55%) voted against it. Married voters (58%) were far more likely to vote yes than thosewho have never been married (37%). Latinos were more likely to support Proposition 8 (61% yes), while whites were divided (50% yes, 50% no). Support for the proposition increased with age.

So, once again, Liberals "discover" that their opposition is stupid. Funny how every human being on the planet who disagrees with them is a low grade moron. What are the odds? /sarc

[GVnana]

Isn't it amazing the lengths they'll go to make that case?

Now, tell me what percentage of voters have a "high school education or less," what percentage of the electorate have "only some college," and what percentage have a "college degree"? Let's forget that fact that California voters have rejected gay marriage not once, but twice.

What's a good liberal to do? Eliminate the lower income, married, and Latino voters?