Clcvedfund Survey Exec Summary

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 10AM PST THURSDAY MAY 7, 2009

California Statewide Survey of Asian American Voters and the Environment To: From:

Interested Parties Ben Tulchin, Mike Bocian and Julie Lein

In order to gauge environmental attitudes among Asian American voters, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research conducted a California statewide survey on behalf of the California League of Conservation Voters Education Fund. This ground-breaking research explored Asian American voter opinions on the environment, the first-ever environmental survey to extensively solicit the views of this growing population. The survey captured sentiments of the Asian American community, with interviews conducted among six nationalities—Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Asian Indian. The results provide encouraging insights about engaging the Asian community on environmental issues, with Asian American voters indicating even stronger environmental attitudes than voters statewide.

Key Findings Key highlights from the survey include: •

Protecting our air, land, and water is an important value for Asian American voters. This held true across different nationalities and ethnicities within the Asian American community. In fact, Asian American voters call themselves “environmentalists” by a far greater margin than California voters statewide.

•

Asian Americans believe strongly that government should take an active role in protecting our air, land, and water, and these voters support environmental regulations and laws to protect natural resources.

•

The poll found that Asian Americans are concerned about a wide range of environmental issues, with global warming topping the list.

•

Asian American voters in California are willing to walk the walk, not just talk the talk when it comes to taking political action to protect the environment. Most Asian voters express a willingness to vote for a ballot measure or a candidate that protects our air, land, and water and is committed to tackling global warming.

www.greenbergresearch.com

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Environmental survey among Asian American voters

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Asian Americans Care about the Environment Asian American voters in California view the environment as an important issue, and are even more likely to consider themselves environmentalists than voters statewide. •

Nearly three in four Asian American voters (74%) say that environmental issues are extremely or very important to them personally. In comparison, two in three voters (67%) statewide indicate environmental issues are extremely or very personally important.

•

More than four in five Asian Americans (83%) describe themselves as environmentalists, outnumbering voters statewide by a three-to-two margin. Specifically, a narrow majority (52%) of all California voters consider themselves environmentalists.

Asian Americans in CA are more likely to call themselves environmentalists Do you consider yourself an environmentalist? (IF YES) Is that somewhat or strongly?

100

83

Asian American voters

100

80

Yes, somewhat

80

Yes, strongly

No

60

60

40

40

20

California statewide voters* 52 45

20

26

21

17 0

0

Yes

No

Yes

No

* From an April 2009 California statewide survey

conducted by Tulchin Research among 564 Page 5| registered voters

Asian Americans Want an Active Government Role in Protecting Air, Land, and Water In order to protect the environment, Asian American voters see the need for government to take an active role in protecting our air, land, and water. Overall, Asian American voters feel that environmental regulations provide an important benefit to society (71%), with only 12% saying they do more harm than good.

 2009 Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, All Rights Reserved.

May 2009

Environmental survey among Asian American voters

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Asian American voters see value in environmental regulations Please tell me which of the following statements comes closest to your own view of government regulations of the environment:

Environmental regulations provide an important benefit to society and help protect our health, air and water.

71

Environmental regulations do more harm than good. They hurt businesses and lead to job losses.

12

Both/ Neither/ Don't know

18

0

20

40

60

80

Global Warming Stands Out as an Environmental Issue While Asian Americans are very concerned about environmental issues generally, global warming, in particular, stands out as a top priority. Over one in three Asian American voters (36%) identified global warming as an extremely serious concern, with nearly seven out of ten (69%) describing global warming as an extremely or very serious issue.

Top environmental issues: Global warming tops the list Now I’m going to read you a list of specific environmental issues facing California. For each issue, please tell me whether you think it is an extremely serious problem, a very serious problem, a somewhat serious problem, or not too serious a problem.

Extremely serious

Global warming

Very serious

36

Having enough water to meet future needs

33

Dependence on foreign oil

32

Traffic/ congestion

27

Air pollution

26

Toxic chemicals

25

Water pollution

24 0

 2009 Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, All Rights Reserved.

20

69 70 68 64 60 55 58 40

60

80

May 2009

Environmental survey among Asian American voters

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Asian Voters Willing to Take Action to Protect the Environment Given the perceived importance of environmental issues, Asian American voters in California are inclined to take political action to protect our air, land, and water. Specifically, four in five Asian American voters (80%) are very or somewhat willing to vote for a candidate with a strong environmental record. An even stronger majority—85 percent—indicate a likelihood of voting for a ballot measure to protect the environment.

Asian American voters willing to take action to protect the environment How likely would you be to take the following actions to protect the environment? For each action, please tell me whether you would be very likely, somewhat likely, a little likely or not at all likely to take it in order to protect the environment. Please be as honest with me as possible.

Very likely

Vote for a ballot measure to protect the environment

Somewhat likely

55

Vote for a candidate that has a strong environmental record

85

80

47

0

20

 2009 Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, All Rights Reserved.

40

60

80

100

May 2009

Environmental survey among Asian American voters

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*** Research Methodology From February 19 – March 9, 2009, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research conducted a survey of 1002 Asian American voters in California, including:







96 Asian Indian voters 298 Chinese voters 279 Filipino voters 88 Japanese voters 105 Korean voters 136 Vietnamese voters

Interviews were conducted in English, Korean, Chinese, and Vietnamese. Of each nationality, the language breakdowns included 76% of Chinese interviews conducted in Cantonese, 74% of Korean interviews conducted in-language, and 84% of Vietnamese interviews conducted in-language. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percentage points.

 2009 Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, All Rights Reserved.

May 2009