SfGate

A ballot measure to repeal California's death penalty and replace it with life in prison without parole has gained support in the last week and leads by 45 to 38 percent among likely voters in the final Field Poll before Tuesday's election.

The poll, conducted Oct. 25-30, was the first to show a lead for Proposition 34, which had trailed 42 to 45 percent in the last survey in mid-September. Polling also found that a majority agreed with one of Prop. 34's major premises - that the death penalty is more expensive than life without parole - and a plurality said innocent people are executed "too often."

Some other recent statewide polls have reported Prop. 34 trailing by as much as seven percentage points. But Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said his organization's new survey was more up-to-date and found that the measure's margin of support had widened by six percentage points in a single week.

The poll also coincided with the first ads aired by the Yes on 34 campaign, which has raised $7 million, nearly 20 times as much as the law enforcement-backed opposition.

Impact of ads cited

Yes on 34 campaign director Natasha Minsker said the poll results indicate voters are getting the message.

"When they hear our message and they hear the facts, they are much more likely to support the initiative," she said. "I think it really shows that the voters are learning the death penalty is all cost and no benefit."

Peter DeMarco, spokesman for the No on 34 campaign, noted that the measure's support remains below the critical 50 percent threshold, and predicted that most of the still-undecided 17 percent would vote against it.

"Given people's opinions about the death penalty, a million dollars in TV ads is not going to make the difference," he said. "It still trails, and it's going to lose."

The Field Poll also reported that labor unions appear to be winning their fight against Prop. 32, which would prohibit them from using payroll-deducted dues - their sole source of income - for political campaigns.

The business-sponsored initiative trails 50 to 34 percent, with the remaining 16 percent undecided, the poll reported. The mid-September survey had shown a smaller gap, 38 percent in favor and 44 percent opposed.

Previous ballot measures to restrict spending of union dues on political causes were defeated in 1998 and 2005. The Prop. 32 campaign will probably be the most expensive on Tuesday's ballot, with more than $60 million spent by each side.

First vote in 34 years

Prop. 34 is Californians' first vote on the death penalty since 1978, when a 71 percent majority approved expansion of a capital punishment law passed by state legislators the previous year.

Since executions resumed in 1992, 13 prisoners have been put to death, while 726 condemned inmates remain housed in the nation's largest Death Row. Executions were halted in 2006 by a federal court order, still in effect, requiring the state to make numerous improvements in its procedures for administering lethal injections.

Statewide opinion polls continue to show support for the death penalty, but when the same voters are asked which punishment they consider appropriate for murder, slight majorities have preferred life without parole over death.

Sponsors of Prop. 34 have stressed the severity of a life sentence with no hope of release and made the cost of the death penalty their leading issue - $130 million a year more than a life-without-parole system, according to the Legislature's fiscal analyst, a figure that opponents dispute.

The new Field Poll found, for the first time, that a strong majority - 53 to 31 percent - agreed that the death penalty was more expensive than life without parole, a question that produced an even split a year ago.

Breakdown of numbers

The poll found that men were evenly divided on Prop. 34 while women favored it by 43 to 35 percent. The survey also found divisions along religious lines - Protestants were strongly opposed to the measure, while other faiths and nonreligious adherents supported it. There were differences along racial lines as well, with white non-Hispanics and Asian Americans about equally split and Latinos and African Americans overwhelmingly in support.

Bay Area voters were more inclined to back Prop. 34 than those in any other region, favoring it by 53 to 30 percent.

Field Research Corp. said the telephone survey of 751 randomly selected likely voters had a margin of error of 3.6 percentage points.