Nobody can say that the latest California poll by PPIC, the Public Policy Institute of California, released Wednesday night, includes many surprises. Like other recent polls, it shows tight races for both governor and U.S. senator and dismal approval ratings for the incumbent governor and Legislature.
But it also shows that on immigration, both GOP gubernatorial candidates, Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner, are on the wrong side of California voters — and by a lot. It shows that all three of the GOP Senate candidates are on the wrong side of the voters on health care.
Poizner, who says he supported Proposition 187, a 1994 initiative that sought to deny public services including schooling to all illegal immigrants, seems to want to drive them all out. Whitman, though somewhat more moderate, opposes all amnesty, "no exceptions," and would deny illegal immigrants the right to attend public colleges and universities.
But in the PPIC poll, 70 percent say illegal immigrants should have a chance to keep their jobs and "eventually apply for legal status." Only 25 percent say they should be deported. Even California Republicans seem to narrowly favor some form of legalization. (Among independents, the margin is 68-26 percent).
In the race for the GOP Senate nomination, two of the candidates, Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore, true to their fellow congressional Republicans, vow to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law.
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