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Who Are the Value Voters?
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Effective voter education and registration is best accomplished with an understanding of the voter landscape: who is likely to vote, what regions contain infrequent voters who care about values in democracy, and where registration drives can expect to find unregistered adults.
These numbers are drawn from studies conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California in 2007 and 2008. PPIC studied 22,368 likely voters, infrequent votes, and unregistered adults.
Conservative Californians are often infrequent voters and unregistered voters.
- Conservatives represent 37 percent of unregistered and eligible voters, compared to 34 percent unregistered moderates and 29 percent unregistered liberals.
- Infrequent voters are 35 percent moderate, 34 percent conservative, and 31 percent liberal.
Yet among likely voters, conservatives are most strongly represented.
- Thirty-seven percent of likely voters identify as conservative, 33 percent say they are liberal, and 30 percent report that they are moderate.
- Thirty percent of independent likely voters say they lean toward neither major political party.
Likely voters are often older than unregistered voters and have received more education.
- In California, 41 percent of likely voters are at least 55 years old.
- Forty-one percent are between 35 and 55, while 18 percent are between 18 and 34 years old.
- A solid 83 percent have had some college education or earned an undergraduate degree.
Five California regions heavily influence statewide voting.
- These statistics represent regional voters, as a percentage of all voters in the state.
|
Region or county |
Likely voters |
Infrequent voters |
Unregistered votes |
|
Los Angeles |
25 percent |
27 percent |
32 percent |
|
San Francisco Bay Area |
23 percent |
18 percent |
15 percent |
|
Central Valley |
17 percent |
19 percent |
17 percent |
|
Orange and San Diego |
17 percent |
16 percent |
16 percent |
|
Inland Empire |
9 percent |
12 percent |
12 percent |
|
Other |
9 percent |
8 percent |
8 percent |
In addition to PPIC research, a detailed analysis of California’s Proposition 8 voters shows four key characteristics of actual pro-family voters in 2008. This study was conducted by Patrick J. Egan, Ph.D., at New York University, and Kenneth Sherrill, Ph.D., at Hunter College, CUNY.
They found that party identification, conservative ideology, frequency of religious service attendance, and age over 65 were driving factors in whether a voter supported Proposition 8.