Question: If the November 4th presidential election were being held today and these were the candidates, who would you vote for?

Barack Obama, the Democrat 49%
John McCain, the Republican 40%
Someone else (volunteered) 4%
Don’t Know 7%

Hillary Clinton, the Democrat 46%
John McCain, the Republican 43%
Someone else (volunteered) 4%
Don’t Know 7%

About this Poll
The findings in this report are based on a telephone survey of 2,002 California adult residents interviewed from March 11–18, 2008. Interviewing took place on weekday nights and weekend days, using a computer-generated random sample of telephone numbers that ensured that both listed and unlisted numbers were called. All landline telephone exchanges in California were eligible. Telephone numbers in the survey sample were called up to six times to increase the likelihood of reaching eligible households. Once a household was reached, an adult respondent (age 18 or older) was randomly chosen for interviewing using the “last birthday method” to avoid biases in age and gender. Each interview took an average of 18 minutes to complete. Interviewing was conducted in English or Spanish. Accent on Languages translated the survey into Spanish with assistance from Renatta DeFever. Schulman, Ronca & Bucuvalas, Inc. conducted the telephone interviewing.

We used recent U.S. Census and state data to compare the demographic characteristics of the survey sample with characteristics of California’s adult population. The survey sample was closely comparable to the census and state figures. The survey data in this report were statistically weighted to account for any demographic differences.

The sampling error for the total sample of 2,002 adults is +/- 2 percent at the 95 percent confidence level. This means that 95 times out of 100, the results will be within 2 percentage points of what they would be if all adults in California were interviewed. The sampling error for subgroups is larger: For the 1,450 registered voters, it is +/- 2.5 percent; for the 1,077 likely voters, it is +/-3 percent. Sampling error is only one type of error to which surveys are subject. Results may also be affected by factors such as question wording, question order, and survey timing.