Davis' fate in voters' hands POLL CRUSH: Influx of young, occasional voter

Davis' fate in voters' hands
POLL CRUSH: Influx of young, occasional voters favors Schwarzenegger, election experts say

Mark Simon, Chronicle Political Writer Tuesday, October 7, 2003

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California's historic and frenzied recall campaign reaches the finish line today with an estimated 10 million voters expected to determine if Gov. Gray Davis will serve out the rest of his second term or be replaced by one of 135 other candidates.

The estimated turnout -- including 2.1 million absentee voters who already have cast their ballots -- would be 30 percent higher than the 7.7 million who voted 11 months ago in the 2002 election, when Davis was re-elected, said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. Field issued the projection Monday.

The boost in participation is likely to come from younger, occasional voters drawn to the polls by Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that could mean trouble for Davis, said DiCamillo.

Historically, a high voter turnout favors Democrats, but in this election, with 400,000 new registered voters, many of the participants are "occasional voters, those voters who have been aroused by this election," DiCamillo said.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/10/07/VOTERS.TMP

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I am gong to say that this thing is not going to be anywhere near close, I think it is going to be a landslide one way or the other. That is just a feeling.

I haven't seen a single Democratic voter registration table in my travels, but the Republicans were everywhere signing up new people.

I read that the stategy was for Democrats to get out existing voters, while Republicans were trying to bring in new voters.

Tomorrow we will know whose strategy worked better.

Should have been doing EVERYTHING. Get the core vote but bring in the new blood, too. Don't let the Pubs have their way.

Pier during the month of Aug & @ the local community college on Tuesdays. The rethugs were paying $8/per rethug registration. It was the first time voters we registered that inspired me the most. Almost w/o exception they were registering to vote NO & not vote 4 steroid boy. I found 1st time voters very current & up 2 speed on the issues.

the only difference is that we don't get paid to do it, we do it because we have a passion for it.

Going to be the first in line at the polls today? I am!!