Field Poll: Schwarzenegger Popular with California Voters, Including Democrats

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

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By Frank D. Russo

The Field Poll released the latest findings today that will have some heads scratching but is generally consistent with what a number of political observers have been saying. Take a look at it and the surveys released recently in their poll archive and an interesting pattern emerges.

Schwarzenegger Ratings

Arnold Schwarzenegger is popular with the registered voters in California. He has a 56% approval rating on his performance of Governor with 32% disapproval. This is statistically the same level as his prior rating in August and perhaps a little lower than his 60% in March. It is across the board with Republicans approving by 63% to 27%, those not affiliated with either major party (non-partisan/others) by 56% to 30%, and even registered Democrats approving his performance by 56% to 30%. 12% have no opinion.

He has an even higher "image" rating of 59% to 32%--seemingly largely based on a reduction of those that have no opinion on that question dropping to 9%. One can't make too much of some of the finer points here, because the poll has a margin of error of 4.1% as to these questions. But he has a marked increase on "image" over "performance" with Republicans 70% to 24% and has the same approval from Democrats on image but with a little increase perhaps--2% on the disapproval of image versus performance.

The basic point is that he has high ratings with the voters and while these fluctuate a bit by party, he has high marks from Democrats, Republicans, and other voters.

Most think he is a moderate--41%--up from 29% who said so in September of 2003 before he won the recall election against Gray Davis. And this percentage who see him as a moderate seems to hold regardless of party affiliation.

Another 34% see him as a "conservative." This view of him as a conservative includes many more Democrats and others (38% for both) and fewer Republicans (28%).

He is seen as a "liberal" by 15%, with much higher numbers of Republicans (21%) coming to this conclusion than Democrats (10%), with others at 14%.