NEW UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DORNSIFE COLLEGE OF LETTERS, ARTS AND SCIENCES/LOS ANGELES TIMES POLL

Thursday, September 10th, 2015

On behalf of the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles Times, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, in conjunction with American Viewpoint, conducted a new survey among 1,500 registered California voters. The latest survey shows:

  • Californians hopeful that El Niño will ease drought, poll finds.
  • Drought is no reason to ease environmental protections, California voters say.
  • Calif. voters increasingly squeezed by drought.
  • Calif. voters overwhelmingly say voting is important — despite consistently low turnout.
  • California Republicans echo U.S. trends, favoring outsiders Donald Trump and Ben Carson.
  • California voters sharply disagree on low-cost healthcare for immigrants.

KEY FINDINGS

ARTICLES

Below you can find articles and stories on findings of this poll:

September 10

September 11

September 12

September 13

September 14

September 15

METHODOLOGY

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, in conjunction with American Viewpoint, conducted this survey on behalf of the University of Southern California Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles Times. These findings are based on a random sample survey of 1,500 (1,500 weighted) registered voters in the state of California, conducted from August 29 – September 8, 2015.  Interviews were conducted by telephone using live interviewers from Interviewing Services of America.  Voters were randomly selected from a list of registered voters statewide and reached on a landline or cell phone depending on the number they designated on their voter registration.  Fifty-five percent of this sample was reached on a cell phone.  Up to five attempts were made to reach and interview each randomly selected voter. 

The study includes an oversample of 400 known-Latino registered voters, with the total number of Latino voters interviewed at 515 (360 weighted).  All interviews among known Latinos were carried out via telephone by bilingual Latino interviewers, and conducted in the preferred language of the survey respondent, English or Spanish. Overall, 31 percent of interviews among the known Latino sample were conducted in Spanish and 69 percent in English. The technique of using fully bilingual interviewers yields higher response and cooperation rates and is greatly preferred because it does not terminate calls with Spanish-language households and require a callback. 

Upon completion of all interviewing, the results were weighted to bring the Latino oversample population into line with the racial and ethnic composition of registered voters in California. The data was weighted to reflect the total population of registered voters throughout the state, balancing on regional and demographic characteristics for gender, age, race, and party registration according to known census estimates and voter file projections from several distinct voter files.

The maximum sampling error for the overall sample of 1,500 registered voters is +/- 2.8 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.  The margin of error for subgroups is higher.  The margin of error for Latinos is +/- 4.6 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.