Posts Tagged: polling

News

CA120: Land lines and cell phones and data, Oh My!

Telephone poles with their land-line wires fade into the sunset of a California highway. (Photo: Ethan Daniels.)

For decades, polling relied on a strong pool of easily reached voters with a traditional land-line telephone. Before caller-ID became prevalent, nearly every call was answered as long as someone was home. But now more voters are untethered from traditional phones (I haven’t had a land line since 1998), and those who do still have them complain that most incoming calls are from telemarketers.

News

Veteran California pollster heads online

Image by Tim Foster, Capitol Weekly

One of the state’s most respected polls has begun incorporating online surveys for the first time, underscoring the increasing difficulty of relying on telephone questioning. The Field Poll, which was founded in 1947, started using online surveys to gather voter opinion on nine of the 17 statewide ballot propositions that will appear on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Analysis

PolitiFact: ‘Pants On Fire’ for report of Sanders’ CA win

A rally for Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders in Irvine, May 22. (Photo: mikeledray, via Shutterstock)

Polls showed Californians ‘Feeling the Bern,’ shortly before the state’s June 7 primary. Bernie Sanders had pulled even or surged slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton in the Democratic presidential race after barnstorming from Chico to Chula Vista. But early results on Election Day showed Clinton crushing Sanders by more than 20 percentage points, a margin that later narrowed to 12.6 points.

News

Exit poll: In tight CA race, absentee voters favor Hillary

Presidential candidates. (Illustration by Tim Foster, Capitol Weekly)

CA120: With just hours until polls close in California, the crucial Democratic presidential contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders appears to be tightening. On the Republican side, the unopposed presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump is trying to show that he can consolidate the Republican electorate behind his candidacy.

News

Exit poll: Harris dominates Senate rivals

CA120: Even with 34 U.S. Senate candidates on the ballot, an exit poll of absentee voters shows that Kamala Harris is lapping the field. Slightly more than half report having voted for Harris, more than three times the level of support for her closest rival in Tuesday’s top-two primary, fellow Democrat Loretta Sanchez. Republicans would need a strong late consolidation of support behind Duf Sundheim to have any hope of preventing an all-Democratic general election.

Analysis

CA120: Nonpartisans in a pickle

A portion of California's June 7 ballot. (Photo: Tim Foster/Capitol Weekly)

When nonpartisan voters were asked how, exactly, they were going to get a Democratic ballot, we saw evidence of widespread confusion. Nearly 60% of those surveyed either incorrectly thought that the Democratic candidates would be on their ballot — as happens in other open primary contests — or they weren’t sure how to vote in the Democratic presidential race.

News

A note to our readers

Capitol Weekly and the CA120 series have been exploring the use of original polling to review the presidential race and the U.S. Senate contest. We are providing data-driven stories on how California voters are engaging with the election.

Opinion

Tax debate must get beyond politics

The California state Capitol in Sacramento. (Photo: Shutterstock)

OPINION: With more than a dozen major tax measures moving through the Legislature or toward the November 2016 ballot, California’s perennial debate about taxes is set to begin anew — with millions of dollars in political campaigns preparing to shape how the state will raise billions of dollars in revenue, and provide public services, for years to come.

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