The results of a public opinion poll released this past week
indicate a large amount of support for Proposition 54 among ethnic
minorities. These findings are dramatically different from past
polls.
The most recent poll, sponsored by the Institute for Justice and
Journalism at the University of Southern California, the Pew
Hispanic Center ““ a non-partisan research center based in
Washington, D.C. ““ and an association of ethnic news
organizations, was conducted among 1,608 California voters.
The results of Thursday’s poll show close to 50 percent of
minority respondents support Proposition 54, while only a third of
white respondents indicated simular support.
Proposition 54, also known as the Racial Privacy Initiative,
would ban the collection of most kinds of racial data by the state
in public education and public employment.
The relatively large numbers of ethnic minorities supporting the
proposition came as a surprise to many analysts.
This is especially true in the face of two recent polls, one by
the Field Research Corporation, and another by the non-partisan
Public Policy Institute of California, both of which showed
increased opposition to the initiative among ethnic and racial
groups.
The Field Poll, released on Sept. 11, showed a significant
decline in the number of voters supporting Proposition 54, with
only 23 percent of Latino responders supporting the initiative.
According to Mark Baldassare, director of the PPIC, similar
polls conducted by his organization in recent months found that the
number of supporters for Proposition 54 among all ethnic groups
declined from 50 percent in August to 38 percent in September.
Baldassare said the political climate in California in the weeks
leading up to the October recall election has a lot to do with the
different results in Thursday’s poll.
“News of the recall has dominated the election cycle. Few
voters have opinions about anything else, and so results come out
differently,” Baldassare said.
Also, since opinions change very rapidly, a lot of people are
uninformed or misinformed about the initiative, and jump to quick
conclusions, he added.
Thursday’s poll showed that a large number of voters were
unaware of the initiative’s existence, with close to 50
percent of Asian Americans and Latinos indicating that they had
never heard of the proposition, and a third of blacks and whites
giving similar responses.
Ricardo Ramirez, assistant professor of political science at
USC, believes the different result between Thursday’s poll
and earlier polls has a direct connection to the way the Thursday
poll was conducted.
The poll, which pollsters administered over the phone, first
asked respondents whether they had heard about Proposition 54 and
then inquired whether they favored or opposed the initiative.
If respondents said they had never heard about the proposition,
the pollers explained the initiative and asked for the
respondents’ opinions.
Ramirez pointed out that those respondents indicating prior
familiarity with the initiative were mostly opposed to the
proposition, results that were very similar to polls conducted
earlier by the PPIC.
He added that respondents who have never heard about the
proposition prior to Thursday’s poll were asked to make a
quick opinion over the phone without having sufficient background
information.
Ramirez said the sample of people interviewed for the poll also
influenced the results.
“If the focus was just on registered voters (as opposed to
those who had voted recently), the numbers would have been much
closer to past polls,” he added.