California's Latino and Asian voters are significantly more concerned about core environmental issues, including global warming, air pollution and contamination of soil and water, than white voters, according to the latest Los Angeles Times/USC poll.

For example, 50% of Latinos and 46% of Asians who responded to the poll said they personally worry a great deal about global warming, compared with 27% of whites. Two-thirds of Latinos and 51% of Asians polled said they worry a great deal about air pollution, compared with 31% of whites.

Similarly, 85% of Latinos and 79% of Asians said they worry a great or a fair amount about contamination of soil and water by toxic waste, compared with 71% of whites.

The poll surveyed 1,689 adults by telephone. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.

"Latinos and Asians are far more likely to be registered as Democrats than whites, and Democrats hold these views more closely," said Peyton Craighill, who supervised the poll.

Read the full story here.

-- Louis Sahagun

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Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, a Republican, holds a narrow lead over Democratic opponent Kamala Harris in the contentious race for California attorney general, aided greatly by voter support on his usually Democratic home turf, a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll has found.

The survey showed that Harris, the San Francisco district attorney, has thus far failed to captivate the Democratic stronghold of Los Angeles County, home to one out of every four registered voters in California and a near must-win for any Democrat running statewide.

Read the full story on our PolitiCal blog: With L.A.'s help, Cooley leads in attorney general's race, Times/USC poll finds

President Obama, whose national poll numbers have declined in the last year, remains popular in California, according to a new Times-USC poll.

When respondents were asked "Do you approve or disapprove of the job being done by Barack Obama as president of the United States?" 54% of likely voters said they approved, and 40% said they disapproved. Among whites, the breakdown was 52%-41%; among Latinos, it was 64%-28%.

Among likely voters, 60% said they had a generally favorable impression of the president.

This view could play a role in the Senate race between Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer and Republican Carly Fiorina, according to a full analysis of the poll by Times political editor Cathleen Decker. Among likely voters, 56% wanted Obama to be supported, and only 34% wanted a senator who would be an opponent.

One of Obama's supporters was Jill Rolen of Fresno County, who said she was irked by criticism of him.

"I think he's doing what he said he was going to do," she said, but "everyone wants him to flip a coin and everything's going to be magically fixed."

Democrat Jerry Brown has moved into a narrow lead over Republican Meg Whitman in their fractious contest for governor, while his party colleague Barbara Boxer has opened a wider margin over GOP nominee Carly Fiorina in the race for U.S. Senate, a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll has found.

The Democratic candidates were benefiting from their party’s dominance in California and the continued popularity here of President Obama, who has retained most of his strength in the state even as it has dropped in other parts of the country. Support for Obama may play a key role in the Senate contest, one of a handful nationally that could determine which party wins control of the chamber.

At the same time, the survey showed, Republicans Whitman and Fiorina have yet to persuade crucial groups of voters that their business backgrounds will translate into government success.

Brown, the former governor and current attorney general, held a 49% to 44% advantage among likely voters over Whitman, the billionaire former chief executive of EBay.

Boxer, a three-term incumbent, led Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, by 51% to 43% among likely voters in the survey, a joint effort by The Times and the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Read full coverage from Times Political Editor Cathleen Decker here.

Men are more likely than women to support legalizing marijuana in California, according to a new L.A. Times-USC poll. Overall, voters support the legalization proposal by 49% to 41%, with 10% uncertain about it, according to the survey of 1,506 registered voters that was conducted May 19-26.

The poll highlights a demographic group that is likely to play a key role: women, particularly those who are married. Men favor legalization, but women are split. Among married women, 49% reject the measure and 40% are in favor of the initiative.

The poll found voters closely divided on the arguments. The measure's supporters say marijuana taxes could raise more than a billion dollars in revenue; opponents dispute that. Among voters, 42% believe that estimate and 38% think it is wildly exaggerated. The November initiative authorizes cities and counties, but not the state, to legalize and tax marijuana sales.

Voters were also split over whether legalized marijuana would worsen social problems, such as by increasing crime or triggering higher marijuana use among teens. Those concerns appear to have much more potency with voters than the debate over tax revenue. Among those who oppose the initiative, 83% think it would add to the state's social woes; 55% of married women also believe that.

Read Times staff writer John Hoeffel's full story here. In the video above, Hoeffel analyzed the results.

Photo: L.A. Times

Half of California’s registered voters oppose new oil drilling off the state’s coast, according to a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll.

That marks a reversal from recent years, when voters increasingly favored new drilling amidst sharp rises in the cost of gasoline.

About 48% of those surveyed opposed new drilling, while 41% supported it, according to the poll, which was conducted May 19-26.

[Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that 50% of voters opposed offshore oil drilling. The number is actually 48%.]

The latest figures mark a return to Californians’ traditional position on drilling in recent decades. In 2008 and 2009, as prices rose at the pump, 51% of voters supported new drilling.

Geography played a role in voters’ attitudes toward seeking new sources of oil offshore, with those who live closer to the state’s beaches being more likely to oppose it. About 53% of residents of coastal counties opposed new drilling while 52% of those who live inland supported it.

The polling took place amid national headlines concerning the massive oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

 
The survey was conducted for The Times and the University of Southern California’s College of Letters, Arts and Sciences by the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and the Republican firm American Viewpoint. The margin of error for the survey in which 1,506 registered voters were polled is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points for the overall sample and slightly larger for smaller breakdowns.

-- Seema Mehta

Track poll results all weekend

Saturday: Voter views on the race for governor and U.S. senate

Sunday: Voter views on Arizona's illegal immigration crackdown

Monday: Voter views on legalizing marijuana in California

Results from the poll, as well as graphics, videos and polling questions, will be posted on latimes.com throughout Memorial Day weekend. You can also track the election at The Times' election guide and on The Times' California Politics blog.

Photo credit: Business Wire

Same-sex marriage got majority support in the latest Los Angeles Times/USC poll -- much like a similar poll by the Public Policy Institute of California earlier this spring.

But does that mean that a measure to repeal Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in the state, would have smooth sailing?

Not necessarily.

First, the numbers: Registered voters surveyed in the latest poll said 52% to 40% that “same-sex couples should be allowed to become legally married in the state of California.” 

A new Los Angeles Times/USC poll has found a shift in California voter sentiment away from proposals to take away all social services from illegal immigrants, including access to schools and emergency medical treatment, from illegal residents.

Large majorities in the poll supported two alternative proposals: one that would couple stronger enforcement at the border with a temporary worker program, and one that would combine stronger border enforcement with a path to eventual citizenship for illegal residents who perform community service, pay back taxes and learn English.

The support for both a guest-worker program and a citizenship option were notable partly because they come at a time when California voters remain deeply pessimistic about the state's economy.

California voters have a generally positive view of the massive federal healthcare package signed into law by President Obama last month, providing a potential boost statewide to the Democrats who pushed it through Congress, according to a new Times/USC poll.

Republican leaders, campaigning against the bill, have warned Democrats that their votes would weigh them down in November's elections. Although that may be true in more conservative parts of the country, the opposite appears to be developing here.

By a margin of 46% to 29%, California voters surveyed said they would be more likely to vote for a politician who had supported the health bill. And just over half the voters polled said they believed the country would be better off because of the bill. 

Most Californians believe the state is in a long-term decline and don't think political leaders have the right stuff to engineer a turnaround. Those were among the findings of a poll sponsored by The Times and the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences reported here last week.

Tuesday, Times assistant managing editor David Lauter discussed the poll's results and implications on KCRW's "Which Way, L.A.?" with host Warren Olney and Phil Trounstine, co-founder and editor of political website CalBuzz.com. Listen to the discussion by clicking the link below:

Listen to "Which Way, L.A.?" excerpt

[Updated at 12:22 p.m. Nov. 13: Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, also appeared on local public radio, KPCC's "AirTalk" with host Larry Mantle, to discuss the poll's results. Click this link to listen on KPCC's website.]