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Support for Proposition 19, which would legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana in California, is holding remarkably steady according to the latest SurveyUSA poll for CBS 5. Among likely voters, 47 percent said they are certain to vote yes while only 42 percent are said they are certain to vote no.
SurveyUSA (9/19-21)
California voters may also vote on several propositions. On Proposition 19, which would change California law to legalize marijuana and allow it to be regulated and taxed, are you …
Certain Yes 47%
Certain No 42%
Not Certain 11%
Support for Prop 19 has remained remarkably steady for a ballot measure. This recent poll is in fact a statistically insignificant change from three weeks ago when SurveyUSA last polled the question and found it at 47 percent yes, 43 percent no, and barely changed from July when the ballot measure was leading 50 percent yes, 40 percent no.
PPP recently also found Prop 19 winning 47 percent of the vote, while 38 percent expected to vote no, which was only a very modest drop in support from their July poll that had the initiative winning 52-36. The firm “yes” is normally the most important part of a ballot measure poll because undecideds tend to break towards “no,” so the agreement between the two polls is very indicative of strong support.
The fact that there are so few undecided and such little fluctuation in the polling speaks to how firm most people are in their positions on the issue of marijuana legalization. It would seem the chances of the No or Yes campaigns changing voters’ minds on Prop 19 is minimal, so with support for the proposition hovering right around 50 percent, its success or failure will all come down to turnout.
Not surprisingly, this most recent poll from SurveyUSA also found that marijuana legalization enjoys overwhelming support among voters under 35 (62-29) and strong opposition from senior citizens (34-52). The bad news for Prop 19 is that midterm elections are normally dominated by older voters. For example, in 2008, voters under 25 made up 11.28 percent of the electorate in California, but in 2006 they made up only 5.85 percent.
The big question that Prop 19′s success or failure hangs on is probably whether having marijuana legalization on the ballot causes the young voters that overwhelmingly support it to turn out in higher numbers, like the levels seen for a presidential election. High youth turnout could be the difference between a 49-51 loss and a 51-49 victory. The evidence from PPP polling is that Prop 19 is likely having some measurable effect on increased enthusiasm among younger voters.
Even if Prop 19 barely fails this time, the huge age divide means that it is only a matter of a few years before there is a clear voting majority for marijuana legalization in California.
7 Comments
No truer words were spoken. Hopefully it won’t require waiting until the opposition senior block moves on to happy hunting grounds.
Well, unfortunately, the degree of separation is sufficiently small to allow electronic vote manipulation to decide the outcome with very little recourse. 5% or less just doesn’t cut it any more. All it does is give the programmers the margins that must be considered to stay undetectable.
But then, given the current state of affairs in this country, probably few care to challenge it anyway.
It’s the ‘not certain’ that bothers me.
Adds up top more than those in favor.
Jon, I’ve been following your work on this issue and I appreciate it. As a California MMJ patient I believe that this will pass in November. But, I also believe that if it does it will be tied up in the courts for years.
Is this a reasonable assumption or am I misinformed and/or too cynical?
FYI, I’m old enough to get the senior discount at my medical marijuana dispensary. Cannabis prohibition is a dirty rotten propaganda hole in our justice system. It has no place hiding-in-plain-sight of our legal code and no true democracy allows propaganda to serve as policy.
But, then again, how long has it been since the U.S. was ACTUALLY a democracy?
It is hard to think what the legal case would be. The federal government can make it still illegal but that would be the fed’s job to enforce. Which becomes even a big problem because I suspect you would have a huge jury nullification problem
So then the key is to spread the word about jury nullification?
Please see http://www.jurors.info for how jurors have the power and can question the law. If nullification is why the fed’s might have problems then we need community education ASAP. My guess is if you asked 100 people on the street what jury nullification was they wouldn’t have a clue.
Jon, thanks for edifying me. I don’t know what the legal case would be either. I just know the forces of the right where it’s kind of a birthright to hate hippies would make such a fuss as to scare the crap out of Democrats. Look at what Boxer’s initial reaction to the ACORN bill of attainder was (not that hippies were involved with ACORN). I just don’t have confidence in Democrats having the political courage to do the right thing.
At least not in the near future.
Once selected for jury, nobody will inform you of your power to judge both law and fact. The judge’s instructions to the jury may even be to the contrary.
“Jurors should acquit, even against the judge’s instruction…if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction the charge of the court is wrong.” — Alexander Hamilton, 1805
h/t to http://www.jurors.info.
Don’t get complacent. Make sure to register (postmark by Oct. 18) and vote (Nov. 2). Do it!