Reading Prop. 50 polls is tricky

Evaluate quality of surveys by sample size, languages offered, duration

- MARK Z. BARABAK COLUMNIST

TUNG DO holds a sign this month at an anti-Prop. 50 rally in Westminster.

(HON CHIU For The Times)

Proposition 50, the California-slaps back initiative, is cruising to a. comfortable victory on Nov. 4, a slam dunk for Gov. Gavin Newsom and efforts to get even with Texas.

Or not.

It’s actually a highly competitive contest between those wanting to offset the GOP’s shameless power grab and opponents of Democrats’ retaliatory gerrymander — with many voters valuing California’s independent redistricting commission and still making up their minds.

Obviously, both things can’t be true, so which is it?

That depends on which of the polls you choose to believe.

Political junkies, and the news outlets that service their needs, abhor a vacuum. So there's no lack of soundings that purport to show just where Californians’ heads are at a mere six weeks before election day — which, in truth, is not all that certain.

Newsom's pollster issued results showing Prop. 50 winning overwhelming approval. A UC Berkeley/ L.A. Times survey showed a much closer contest, with support below the vital 50% mark. Others give the measure a solid lead.

Not all polls are created equal.

“It really matters how a poll is done,” said Scott Keeter, a senior survey advisor at the Pew Research Center, one of the country’s topflight polling organizations. “That’s especially true today, when response rates are so low [and] it’s so difficult to reach people, especially by telephone. You really do have to consider how it’s done, where it comes from, who did it, what their motivation is.”