New Working Californians Poll on the CA Dem Presidential Primary

Brian D’Arcy & Marvin Kropke, Co-Chairs

For Immediate Release: 26 April 2007

Los Angeles – On the eve of the Democratic Presidential candidates’ arrival in California for this weekend’s state party convention, a new statewide poll finds quality-of-life issues and personal economic insecurity will be key to determining voters’ choices for President, along with the dominant issue of Iraq. But thus far, likely voters report hearing strikingly little from the candidates on anything other than Iraq.

Working Californians, a strategic research and public advocacy group promoting the interests of working people in public policy debates in California, released the statewide poll of likely Democratic primary voters today – at the same time launching the “Choices for Working Californians” project at www.WorkingCalifornians.com/choices, an online “one stop shop” for tracking the candidates on the quality-of-life issues that concern them most. (Next week, in conjunction with the GOP debate at the Reagan Library, Working Californians will release its survey of likely Republican Party voters and launch the GOP section of the website.)

“Iraq remains a dominant issue, of course, but California Democrats need to hear more from the candidates on core quality of life issues like health care, the environment, education and economic security,” said Brian D’Arcy, Co-chair of Working Californians. “And they want to hear how the next President will put their government back to work – especially on crises like health care, oil dependency and global warming.”

“When nearly half the electorate says they’re falling behind economically and over three-quarters say the country is on the wrong track you know that voters want to know about more than just the candidate’s personalities,” said Marvin Kropke, Co-Chair of Working Californians. “The Working California’s Presidential primary ‘Choices’ project will provide voters with a central online source for tracking the candidates’ on core quality of life issues.”

Specifically, the Working Californians poll found the following about likely California Democratic Presidential primary voters:

• Nearly half (49%) say their family incomes are not keeping up with the cost of living, while only 14% say they’re getting ahead. (Some 35% said they’re “staying even,” hardly the American Dream.)
• 90% rank health care affordability as “one of the most important” (40%) or “very important” (50%) to their decision. And according to the average response, as opposed to the most intense, health care costs (4.29 on a 1-5 scale) actually outrank “dealing with the war in Iraq” (4.18.)
• These voters are almost unanimous in wanting the government to take a larger or more aggressive role in fixing health care (93% agree, with 71% strongly agreeing), in reducing carbon pollution to address global warming (92% agree, with 65% strongly agreeing), and in making us independent of foreign oil (92% agree, with 63% strongly agreeing).
• Except on Iraq, there’s a significant disconnect between voters’ top concerns and the issues they hear the candidates discussing. Some 45% ranked Iraq as “one of the most important” issues to determine their vote, and 62% report they have heard “a great deal” about it from the candidates. But while health care costs (40%) ranked just below the war in importance to voters (and even ahead of Iraq by one measure), only 39% report hearing a great deal about this issue from the candidates—23 points below Iraq—and just 30% have heard significant discussion about making health insurance more available. A similar pattern exists for other top issues.

In the horserace, Hillary Clinton leads with 38%, followed by Barack Obama with 19% and John Edwards with 17%. Senator Clinton is the best known candidate by a significant margin, but Obama and Edwards are more popular among the Democrats who know them. No one else exceeds 4%, and 14% were undecided.

For more survey results and analysis – on the issues as well as the horserace, favorability ratings and other data – please see the pollster’s two memos at www.WorkingCalifornians.com/choices. The poll was conducted for Working Californians by The Mellman Group of Washington, D.C., April 9-12, 2007. The sample is 400 likely voters for the 2008 Democratic Presidential primary in California, and the margin of error of 4.9%.

About Working Californians

Working Californians is a strategic research and public advocacy group promoting the interests of working people in public policy debates in California, particularly in the Los Angeles area. Focusing especially on quality-of-life issues, Working Californians conducts and analyzes strategic research and directs public education, advocacy and political campaigns. The Co-Chairs of Working Californians are Brian D’Arcy of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, and Marvin Kropke of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11. For more information, please visit www.WorkingCalifornians.com/.

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