Nearly 7 years after recalling him from office California voters would like to have Gray Davis back...or at least they'd rather have him than Arnold Schwarzenegger. 44% on our most recent poll said they'd rather have Davis as Governor to 38% who picked Schwarzenegger. Democrats (64%) are more unified around the desire for Davis than Republicans are around Schwarzenegger (59%), although independents do lean toward the current Governor by a 41-37 margin.
Davis is still pretty unpopular with voters in the state. 32% view him favorably to 44% with a negative opinion. It's interesting to note that -12 favorability spread is equal to Carly Fiorina's (28/40) and better than Meg Whitman's -20 at 30/50. The GOP ticket's chances would be a lot better if their candidates didn't have Gray Davis like polling numbers.
The Davis/Schwarzenegger breakdown is actually a pretty good proxy for this year's Governor's race. Voters in the state don't like Jerry Brown (or Davis) but they like Whitman (or Schwarzenegger) even less and that drives a Democratic lead.
California voters are much more charitable when looking back on the Republicans of the past. 41% say Ronald Reagan is their favorite out of the state's last six Governors with Jerry Brown the runner up but far behind at 22%. Californians aren't opposed to all Republicans, but none of the ones the party has put forward recently have come close to matching the Reagan magic.
Full results here
Suggestion for your next poll: "Are you unemployed?"
ReplyDeleteI think it would be an interesting question to see whether the (quite significant number) of unemployed Americans will be voting their numbers since they would come disproportionately from demographics that don't vote in midterms. The crosstabs (though small sample size would be an issue) would be quite interesting too.
Well this was certainly a ... different poll. I like how the props question was included in this poll. Were you going to ask about the baseball teams thing again? I thought you said you would.
ReplyDeleteSuggestion for next Gov: offer them Pot.
ReplyDeleteAs Fat Freddie always said; Pot will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no Pot.
Bread and Circuses....
"Were you going to ask about the baseball teams thing again? I thought you said you would."
ReplyDeleteWe did, and we have been in any state with a baseball team for some time, but we haven't released them yet.
His IOU habit is spreading to others...Or should we say we were forced to just like the CA State Controller?
ReplyDeleteRead and scroll down..
http://waterforfightingpac.wordpress.com/
ROFL. By that line of thinking, we ought to put Bush back in office, as he's increasingly approaching parity with pariah President redux Obama.
ReplyDelete