Posted on 09/08/2021 12:15:57 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Two separate polls of the Gavin Newsom recall election show the governor opening up large leads in the final days of the campaign.
The first, from Survey USA and the San Diego Union-Tribune, shows 51% of respondents voting "no" on the recall ballot's first question (Shall Gavin Newsom be recalled?), with 43% voting "yes" and 6% undecided. A separate poll from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) showed Newsom leading question one by an even wider 58% to 39% margin — a 19 percentage-point lead that appears seemingly insurmountable.
Advertisement Of course, polls — especially ones from 2016 and beyond — that show Democrats with comfortable leads have not always been accurate. The 2020 presidential election featured a polling miss as large as the 2016 miss, and a great deal has been written on why polls seem to consistently undersample conservative voters.
Rather than enter a discussion around "shy" Trump/recall voters, response rates in the work-from-home era or weighting by education, perhaps the best way to determine the reliability of the Newsom recall polls is by seeing how well Survey USA and PPIC performed in California's last statewide election — which was less than a year ago with pollsters working under the same COVID-19 related constraints.
Below is a table showing numbers from Survey USA's final poll for the 2020 general election compared with actual results. Included are the results of four races: 1. The presidential race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, 2. California's Proposition 15 (raising property taxes on commercial and industrial properties), 3. California's Proposition 16 (lifting a ban on affirmative action) and 4. California's Proposition 22 (granting app-based transportation and delivery companies an exception to a state labor law by classifying drivers as independent contractors rather than employees).
The "conservative" side for the three ballot measures are "no" on Prop. 15, "no" on Prop. 16 and "yes" on Prop. 22. Because a recall election is a special election with lower-than-expected turnout, looking at past polling on ballot measures may be more useful than polling on big-ticket, top-of-ballot races like the presidential election.
Survey USA logged some massive misses on Prop. 15 and Prop. 16, largely explained by the large portion of respondents who said they were undecided. On Prop. 15, Survey USA found 49% of respondents voting "yes," 21% voting "no" and a whopping 30% saying they were undecided. In the end, 52% of Californians voted "no" and 48% voted "yes," so unless every single undecided voter decided to vote "no" at the last second, this constitutes a major miss.
For Prop. 16, Survey USA's polling found 40% of respondents voting "yes," 26% voting "no" and 34% undecided. The final result was 57% voting "no" and 43% voting "yes." Survey USA's polling for Prop. 22, on the other hand, was fairly accurate, predicting a win of 14 percentage points (Prop. 22 passed by 17 percentage points). If we work under the assumption that Survey USA's undecided voters consistently seem to end up taking the "conservative" side, then the recall could be a nail-biter, as Survey USA's final recall survey shows 51% opposing the recall, 43% in support and 6% undecided.
PPIC fared better than Survey USA in 2020 — but still missed on Prop. 15 and did not ask respondents about Prop. 22.
If we take PPIC's worst miss from 2020 (Prop. 15) and assume a similar eight-percentage-point miss in the recall, Newsom would still survive by 11 percentage points, as PPIC's final recall poll shows Newsom leading by 19.
Polls from earlier in the summer attempted to weight by how likely a voter is to actually cast a ballot, as Republicans have been more enthusiastic about the recall than Democrats. More recent polls show the enthusiasm gap shrinking, and given the makeup of California's electorate (47% Democratic, 24% Republican, 23% nonaffiliated, 6% other), that's very good news for Newsom.
Additional polling, including from the Berkeley Institute of Government Studies, is expected ahead of the Sept. 14 recall election.
gotta pump the fake polls up so the cheat won’t be so obvious
NEVER, WILL WE EVER TRUST THE ELECTION PROCESS!
The damn demoncrats have screwed elections, forever.
The bastards have stolen the heart of our nation, election by the will of “We the People,” is forever dirtied, tainted, questioned, not trusted, and not believed.
They had to do it in 2020 because President Donald J Trump was going to win in a landslide. The desperation, felt by the Dems, was so great that they risked exposure and prison to pull it off. The GOP had its contribution to the scam.
That a Billionaire non-member had won the nomination and the election was too much to brook. The “establishment,” CFR members vowed to block Trump in every area of government.
Trump’s SCOTUS appointments were approved but who were they?
They have been a disappointment, for sure! Bush(2)’s John Roberts has been the worst.
The “Never Trumpers” are to blame for recommending non performers and the few that had compromised pasts to make them neutered. W. Barr, AG, is the perfect example of a man appointed to a Cabinet position, who had NO INTENTION of performing his duties.
PS
Someone has a picture of Barr with another man’s “member” in his mouth!!!!!!! That is the only thing that can explain Barr’s inaction.
(not that I feel strongly about this crap!)
All 4 voters from my household voted yes to recall today (out of town on Election Day) and selected Kevin Kiley as his replacement.
Why did you pick Kevin Kiley?
We already won by getting the question on the ballot. We should do that any time a Democrat is in office.
No.
He is best on k-12 and college school issues which is my #1 concern. Too much masking, testing, and “quick to close schools” going on in CA. Also he’s been in the CA legislature and knows how to deal with it all. Plus he’s sharp as a tack. Conservative and Ivy League.
I thought the front runner was good on masking?
Yes Elders is good on masking too. All the options are likely better than Newsom!
The republicans have fire in the belly for this recall, the Dems not so much to save him WE ALL will crawl over broken glass to get rid of this bastard HOWEVER our side better have our cheating mail ballot skills in top shape!!
Maybe you’d prefer a dictatorship? Russia sounds about more your speed. This is America, we vote. Trump’s SCOTUS is as conservative as we are ever going to have, deal with it or GTFO.
Any candidate or party that can’t win with 100 percent turnout deserves to disappear.
Unfortunately I believe the recall will fail (Californians are that stupid), but if it were truly a runaway win, would they be bringing in Kamala and Biden to help campaign for Newsom?
Also, the fact they chose Senators Warren and Sanders to be the lead on the anti recall commercials shows how lost CA really is.
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