These are the highlights of the latest Field Poll completed among a random sample of 997 California registered voters.

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1 THE FIELD POLL THE INDEPENDENT AND NON-PARTISAN SURVEY OF PUBLIC OPINION ESTABLISHED IN 1947 AS THE CALIFORNIA POLL BY MERVIN FIELD Field Research Corporation 601 California Street, Suite 900 San Francisco, CA (415) FAX: (415) Release #2416 Release Date: Friday, July 6, 2012 OBAMA MAINTAINING LARGE PREFERENCE LEAD OVER ROMNEY IN CALIFORNIA. MOST VOTERS HERE VIEW OBAMA FAVORABLY AND ROMNEY UNFAVORABLY. IMPORTANT: Contract for this service is subject to revocation if publication or broadcast takes place before release date or if contents are divulged to persons outside of subscriber staff prior to release time. (ISSN ) By Mark DiCamillo and Mervin Field President Barack Obama is maintaining a large lead in California over his GOP rival Mitt Romney in this year s presidential race 55% to 37%. Last February Obama led Romney by a similar 55% to 35% margin. Voters in this state continue to view Obama in a favorable light. Nearly six in ten voters (58%) have a positive opinion of the President, while 39% view him negatively. This contrasts with voter appraisals of Romney. A majority of Californians (55%) hold an unfavorable view of him and just 36% have a positive opinion. This is the first time since Romney began his run for the GOP nomination that more than one-half of this state s voters express a negative impression of him. While 79% of Obama supporters say their vote is based on their views of the President, most Romney voters (60%) say they are motivated more by a dislike of Obama than positive regard vote for the former Massachusetts governor. Obama continues to receive positive reviews from Californians regarding his overall job performance, with 55% approving and 39% disapproving. However, more Californians think the country is moving in the wrong direction (51%) as think it is on the right track (35%). These are the highlights of the latest Field Poll completed among a random sample of 997 California registered voters. Obama maintaining large lead By a large margin 55% to 37% California voters prefer Obama over Romney if the election for president were being held today. Field Research Corporation is an Equal Opportunity / Affirmative Action Employer

2 Friday, July 6, 2012 Page 2 This is similar to the 55% to 35% advantage that Obama had in California last February during the early stages of the Republican presidential primary election season. Table 1 Vote preferences for President pairing Obama against Romney (among California likely voters) Late June/ early July 2012 February 2012 Obama 55% 55% Romney Other 3 N/A Undecided 5 10 N/A: Not asked. Note: February measures conducted among all registered voters. Differences across voter subgroups Voting preferences are highly polarized among partisans. Democratic voters favor Obama by a greater than nine-to-one margin, while GOP voters prefer Romney nine to one. The growing segment of Californians with no party preference, who are often the state's swing voters in close elections, are strongly backing Obama. At present 60% of these voters prefer Obama, while 30% favor Romney. While Obama holds leads among both men and women, although the President's lead among females is larger. Nearly two in three voters under age 40 are supporting Obama. On the other hand, voters age 65 or older divide their preferences almost evenly. Very large majorities of Latinos and African-Americans prefer the President over Romney. While the race is a bit closer among white non-hispanics and Asian-Americans, Obama still leads among these voters by seven and eight points, respectively. Preferences in the presidential race are directly tied to a voter's political ideology. Conservative voters are strongly embracing Romney, while liberals are even more supportive of Obama. However middle-of-the-road voters, who often constitute the state's swing voting bloc, are backing the President nearly two to one. There are big differences in preferences according to a voter's religion. Romney holds a big lead among Protestants. However, the President is heavily supported among Catholics, voters affiliated with other religions and those who have no religious preference. Romney is also preferred five to three among born-again Christians, while Obama holds a nearly two-to-one lead among all other voters.

3 Friday, July 6, 2012 Page 3 Table 2 Voter preferences between Obama and Romney by subgroup (among California likely voters) Obama Romney Other/ undecided Total likely voters 55% 37 8 Party registration Democrats 84% 9 7 Republicans 9% No party preference/other 60% Area Coastal counties Inland counties 60% 40% Region Los Angeles County 65% 29 6 Other Southern California 43% Central Valley 42% 49 9 San Francisco Bay Area 73% 21 6 Other Northern California* 46% 50 4 Gender Male Female 51% 58% Age % % % % or older 46% 47 7 Race/ethnicity White non-hispanic 50% 43 7 Latino 66% African-American* 88% 2 10 Asian-American/other 54% Political ideology Strongly conservative 11% 81 8 Moderately conservative 16% Middle-of-the-road 57% Moderately liberal 87% 7 6 Strongly liberal 96% 4 ** Religion Protestant 37% 56 7 Catholic 56% Other religions 78% 19 3 No preference 71% Born-again Christian Yes No 35% 61% * Small sample size. ** Less than ½ of 1%

4 Friday, July 6, 2012 Page 4 Images of the presidential candidates Californians offer very different personal assessments of the two presidential candidates. By a nineteen point margin (58% to 39%) voters view Obama favorably. By contrast, a nineteen-point plurality (55% to 36%) holds an unfavorable impression of Romney. Partisans offer sharply different assessments of the candidates. Greater than eight in ten Democrats (85%) have a positive view of Obama, while three in four Republicans (75%) hold a favorable view of Romney. Voters who register as independents (no party preference) view Obama favorably (64% to 34%) but hold an opposite view of Romney 60% unfavorable and 29% favorable. Obama's current highly positive standing with Californians has been relatively stable in previous Field Poll measures. This contrasts with the impressions voters have of Romney, which have become increasingly negative over time. For example, in June 2011 just 34% viewed Romney unfavorably. Now, a little more than twelve months later, the proportion who feel this way has grown to 55%. Table 3a Trend of voter impressions of Barack Obama (among California likely voters) Favorable Unfavorable No opinion Barack Obama Late June/early July % 39 3 May % 38 9 September % 41 4 October % 30 9 September % 32 6 July % May % 29 9 January % Party registration (Late June/early July 2012) Democrats 85% 12 3 Republicans 16% 81 3 No party preference/others 64% 34 2 Note: Previous measures based on registered voters.

5 Friday, July 6, 2012 Page 5 Table 3b Trend of voter impressions of Mitt Romney (among California likely voters) Favorable Unfavorable No opinion Mitt Romney Late June/early July % 55 9 May % November % September % June % Party registration (Late June/early July 2012) Democrats 12% 80 8 Republicans 75% 16 9 No party preference/others 29% Note: Previous measures based on registered voters. Vote choices more about Obama than Romney Almost four out of five (79%) of those supporting Obama's re-election state that their preference is more of a vote for him than a vote against Romney. However, by a 60% to 36% margin, Romney voters say they are motivated more by negative feelings toward Obama than a positive regard for Romney. Table 4 Is your vote preference more a vote for your candidate vs. a vote against his opponent (among likely voters) Obama voters Romney voters For candidate 79% 36% Against opponent No opinion 1 4 Obama's job performance By a 55% to 39% margin, California voters approve of Obama's overall job performance. This is similar to the ratings Obama has been getting in California earlier this year and are up somewhat from the job marks he received in the fall and winter of last year. The President's job ratings are highly partisan, with 79% of Democrats approving, while an equivalent proportion of Republicans (79%) disapproves. Voters with no party preference give Obama a 58% to 33% positive assessment.

6 Friday, July 6, 2012 Page 6 Table 5 Trend of Californians' views about the job Barack Obama is doing as President (among California registered voters) Approve Disapprove No opinion Late June/early July % 39 6 May % 39 8 February % 39 8 November % 44 8 September % June % 37 9 March % 37 9 September % 41 6 July % 39 7 March % January % October % 31 9 March % Party registration (Late June/early July 2012) Democrats 79% 14 7 Republicans 17% 79 4 No party preference/other 58% 33 9 Direction of the country About one-third (35%) of Californians now think the country is headed in the right direction, while 51% believe it is seriously off on the wrong track. This finding is similar to what was observed last February. However, it represents a significant improvement from a 19% right direction and 70% wrong track assessment given by Californians last November.

7 Friday, July 6, 2012 Page 7 Table 6 Are things in the U.S. generally going in the right direction or do you feel things are seriously off on the wrong track? (among California registered voters) Right Wrong direction track No opinion Late June/early July % February % November % September % March % September % July % January % (average) 45% (average) 16% (average) 25% (average) 30% (average) 33% (average) 38% (average) 44% (average) 51% December % 27 5 September 2001 (pre-9/11 attack) 43% 49 8 January % (average) 63% (average) 54% (average) 57% (average) 44% (average) 34% (average) 33% (average) 41% (average) 27% (average) 14% (average) 14% (average) 30% (average) 49% (average) 42% 53 5 Party registration (Late June/early July 2012) Democrats 49% Republicans 13% No party preference/others 38% Note: Surveys prior to 1996 conducted among all California adults. 30

8 Friday, July 6, 2012 Page 8 Methodological Details Information About The Survey The latest Field Poll survey was completed June 21-July 2, 2012 among 997 registered voters in California, including 848 voters who report being likely to vote in the November 2012 election. In order to cover a broad range of issues and still minimize voter fatigue, some questions in this report were asked of a random subsample of 485 registered voters. Interviewing was conducted by telephone in English and Spanish using live interviewers working from Field Research Corporation s central location telephone interviewing facilities. Up to six attempts were made to reach, screen and interview each randomly selected voter on different days and times of day during the interviewing period. Interviewing was completed on either a voter s landline phone or a cell phone depending on the source of the telephone listing from the voter file. In this survey 745 interviews were derived from landline sample listings and 252 from cell phone listings. After the completion of interviewing, the overall registered voter sample was weighted to Field Poll estimates of the characteristics of the overall registered voter population in California. Sampling error estimates applicable to the results of any probability-based survey depend on sample size as well as the percentage distribution being examined. The maximum sampling error estimates for results based on the overall registered voter sample is +/- 3.1 percentage points, while results from the likely voter sample have a sampling error of +/- 3.4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level. Findings based on the random subsample of registered voters have a sampling error of +/- 4.5 percentage points. The maximum sampling error is based on results in the middle of the sampling distribution (i.e., percentages at or near 50%). Percentages at either end of the distribution (those closer to 10% or 90%) have a smaller margin of error. There are other potential sources of error in surveys besides sampling error. However, the overall design and execution of the survey sought to minimize these other possible sources of error. The Field Poll was established in 1947 as The California Poll by Mervin Field, who is still an active advisor. The Poll has operated continuously since then as an independent, non-partisan survey of California public opinion. The Poll receives annual funding from media subscribers of The Field Poll, from several California foundations, and the University of California and California State University systems, who receive the data files from each Field Poll survey shortly after its completion for teaching and secondary research purposes. Questions Asked Thinking about the country overall, do you think things in the U.S. are generally going in the right direction, or do you feel things are seriously off on the wrong track?* Overall, do you approve or disapprove of the way Barack Obama is handling his job as President? (ASKED OF LIKELY VOTERS) If the presidential election were being held today and the candidates were Barack Obama, Democrat and Mitt Romney, Republican, for whom would you vote Obama or Romney? Is your preference more a vote for (Barack Obama) (Mitt Romney) or more a vote against (Mitt Romney) (Barack Obama)? Is your opinion of (Mitt Romney, former Massachusetts Governor) (Barack Obama, President) favorable or unfavorable? * Asked of a random subsample of registered voters.

Release #2345 Release Date: Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Release #2345 Release Date: Tuesday, July 13, 2010 THE FIELD POLL THE INDEPENDENT AND NON-PARTISAN SURVEY OF PUBLIC OPINION ESTABLISHED IN 1947 AS THE CALIFORNIA POLL BY MERVIN FIELD Field Research Corporation 601 California Street, Suite 900 San Francisco,