Props don’t daunt voters
Field Poll shows death penalty, prescription drug ballot measures are neck and neck
Less than a week before Election Day, California voters appear to be bucking a tradition of casting no votes when faced with an overwhelmingly crowded and confusing ballot.
A new Field-IGS Poll suggests voters are headed toward legalizing recreational marijuana, hiking taxes on cigarettes, beefing up the state’s already tough gun laws and freeing more nonviolent offenders by overhauling the state’s parole system.
“It’s not as if this long ballot is leading to this no, no, no, no, no syndrome,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of The Field Poll.
But voters are less agreeable about competing death-penalty
initiatives — with 51 percent supporting Proposition 62 to abolish the practice; and 48 percent in favor of Proposition 66, which would speed up executions. If both pass, the one with the most votes would prevail.
The survey, conducted by The Field Poll and UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, also found an even split over Proposition 61, a hard-fought measure to curb prices on prescription drugs for state employees and some MediCal patients. Amid an opposition campaign fueled by more than $109 million, mostly from pharmaceutical giants, support for the measure has declined slightly in recent months, to 47 percent.
Given the opposition spending, “The astonishing thing about this is that Prop. 61 is still alive,” said Garry South, chief strategist for Yes on 61.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has championed the campaign to curtail soaring prescription drug prices, will headline pro-61 rallies in Sacramento and Los Angeles before Tuesday’s election, South said.
Despite the notion that a crowded ballot causes fed-up voters to reject initiatives, the Field Poll, conducted online Oct. 25-31, found support for seven of the 10 closely watched measures included in the survey: hospital fees (Proposition 52); a tax extension on the wealthy for schools and health care (Proposition 55); a $2-per-pack tax on cigarettes (Proposition 56); changes in criminal sentences (Proposition 57); multilingual education (Proposition 58); gun control (Proposition 63); and recreational marijuana legalization (Proposition 64).
And though two previous attempts to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana — including one in 2010 — have tanked in California, attitudes are shifting as other states, including Colorado and Washington, have done so. The latest measure showed 57 percent support in the October Field Poll, with 40 percent opposed and just 3 percent undecided.
Voters in their 40s, who opposed a similar legalization effort in 2010, are now backing it 2 to 1, the poll found. And, perhaps not surprisingly, 95 percent of those surveyed who said they had used marijuana in the past year are voting yes on Proposition 64.
A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll out this week also forecasts a victory for the pot measure.
The Times poll found both death penalty measures coming up short — in contrast to the Field Poll, which showed 51 percent of voters wanting to abolish the death penalty.
Although just one of the death-penalty initiatives can win out, 23 percent of voters surveyed in the Field Poll were supporting both of the competing measures — Proposition 62, to repeal capital punishment, and Proposition 66 to overhaul a system widely blasted as costly and dysfunctional.
“That doesn’t surprise me, really,” said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, which supports Prop. 66 and opposes Prop. 62. For some, he said, “the status quo is the worst possibility.”
The Field Poll found clear “battle lines” on abolishing the death penalty, with Democrats, liberals, voters under 40, Bay Area residents and those with a postgraduate education more likely to support Proposition 62. Those most likely to be opposed are Republicans, conservatives, Protestants, voters 65 and older, inland residents and those who have not graduated from college.
But the ideological and demographic lines aren’t as clear cut for supporters of Proposition 66, DiCamillo said. The poll found 10 percent of voters are still undecided on that measure.
“I think there’s little confusion about what Proposition 62 is about,” DiCamillo said. “I think there’s some confusion on what 66 does.”
If both measures surpass the 50 percent threshold, the one with more votes will pass.
“It does look like it’s going to be close,” said Jacob Hay, a spokesman for the Yes on 62 campaign. “But I’d rather be in our position than theirs.”