UCI

Political Climate

When the 1992 survey was conducted, Bill Clinton and George Bush were in a dead heat among Orange County voters, with 41 percent supporting Clinton and 40 percent favoring Bush. Seven percent named others (including Ross Perot) and 12 percent were unsure. At that time, Perot had dropped out of the race.

In Orange County, where Republicans have a 20-point voter registration edge over the Democrats, the tie between the two candidates meant that the president was having serious difficulties rallying support -- even in his own party.

Bush's political troubles stemmed from Orange County voters' negative feelings about the U.S. economy and their own finances.
Six in 10 voters expect the nation to be in bad economic times next year. Of those, 48 percent supported Clinton during interviewing for the 1992 survey, and only 31 percent favored Bush. Meanwhile, only three in 10 look forward to good times in the U.S. next year. In this group, Bush led Clinton by 58 to 28 percent.

Among the one in three voters who think they are worse off now than last year, Clinton was supported over Bush by 49 to 31 percent. And of the one in three who think they are financially better off now than last year, Bush was favored over Clinton by 49 to 37 percent.

In the November election, Bush received 43 percent of the local vote, Clinton had 32 percent and Perot had 24 percent. In 1988, Bush had taken Orange County by a 2-1 margin. Clearly, there were fundamental changes in outlook which led to this change.

As for the U.S. Senate races, Orange County Republican Sen. John Seymour led the Democratic candidate Dianne Feinstein by 48 to 38 percent for the two-year seat, with 1 percent supporting other candidates and 13 percent undecided when the survey was taken. As for the six-year seat, Republican Bruce Herschensohn had a six-point lead over Barbara Boxer (46% to 40%). One percent backed others and 13 percent were undecided.

In the November election, Seymour received 51 percent of the vote to 40 percent for Feinstein. Herschensohn had 58 percent to 34 percent for Boxer.

We examined the possibility that a more dramatic shift in political orientation was under way, given the lower-than-expected support for Republicans, and compared the political orientation of voters this year to the opinions of two years ago.

Overall, the proportion of voters labelling themselves as "very" or "somewhat" liberal is unchanged, moving from 28 percent to 29 percent, while the "middle-of-the road" orientation increased insignificantly from 25 to 29 percent. The number calling themselves "somewhat conservative" was 33 percent in 1990 and 30 percent this year, while the "very conservative" group was 13 percent in 1990 and 12 percent now. The political orientations of Republicans and Democrats are also unchanged over time.

As we noted last year, 70 percent of Republicans call themselves middle-of-the-road or somewhat conservative. Fifteen percent of Republicans say they are liberal and 15 percent say they are very conservative.

The middle-of-the-road and somewhat conservative labels also apply to about half of the Democrats in Orange County (46%), while 47 percent of Democrats describe themselves as liberals and 7 percent say they are very conservative in their politics.