Governor Schwarzenegger Takes His Chances: California’s November Special Election

By Mark Baldassare

California is one of twenty-four states with a “direct democracy” system that allows voters to make laws and change public policies at the ballot box. But no other place comes close to the Golden State in using the citizens’ initiative process with such frequency, funding, and flair for the dramatic. State voters are accustomed to lengthy and complicated ballots asking them to make weighty decisions on taxes, public education and health spending, environmental protection, and the social and moral issues of the day. Consistently, Californians tell us in our polls that they prefer to vote on public policy rather than have the governor and legislature lead the policymaking process.  

On November 8, Californians will face a political rarity even for voters in the heartland of direct democracy—a special election called by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to pass a package of three governance, fiscal, and school reform initiatives that he has endorsed. Moreover, California’s election laws require that five other initiatives that had qualified for the next statewide election share space on the ballot. The yes and no campaigns for the eight measures are spending millions of dollars on advertising. The outcomes will surely have implications for California’s elections next year, other states’ policies, and national politics.

The public opinion setting for this election features, first and foremost, a dramatic drop in the governor’s approval ratings. After a meteoric rise on the national political scene, Governor Schwarzenegger has seen his popularity come crashing down to earth in his second year in office. At the Public Policy Institute of California, the PPIC Statewide Survey has been tracking the governor’s approval ratings since January 2004 through twelve random digit dialing (RDD) surveys with at least 2,000 adults and approximately 1,500 registered voters in each wave. Throughout January 2005, this GOP governor in a solidly “blue” state enjoyed popularity ratings of around 60 percent among registered voters. In April and May, they dropped to 43 percent and, in July and August, only 38 percent said they approved of Schwarzenegger’s overall performance as governor. In September, his approval rating was at 35 percent.

What is behind this reversal of political fortune? It is illustrative to compare Schwarzenegger’s ratings a year ago to today across party lines. The fact that Democrats outnumber Republicans in California by a 43 percent to 34 percent margin renders even more notable a thirty-four point rise in disapproval among Democratic voters (44 percent to 78 percent), with Republicans showing a more modest increase (8 percent to 26 percent). And in a state where both major parties rely on the political backing of the one in six Independent or “decline to state” voters to win at the polls, Schwarzenegger has seen his disapproval ratings rise by thirty-three points in this key swing group (27 percent to 60 percent). To place the governor’s standing in clear perspective, consider that President George W. Bush was ahead of Schwarzenegger (38 percent to 35 percent) in overall job approval in California as of September, and Bush lost the state to the Democratic challengers by over one million votes in both the 2000 and 2004 elections.