Skip to content

Community and Labor Center Accurately Forecasts Voter Preferences in Fresno Within 1 Percentage Point

October 29, 2021
Logo of UC Merced's Community and Labor Center
The survey sampled registered voters in Fresno and included questions about intent to vote in the recall election.

A partnership among UC Merced's Community and Labor Center and several Fresno area community groups was able to predict accurately the Fresno results for the gubernatorial recall election held Sept. 14.

Fresno Speaks 2021 is a partnership of the center and the Fresno County Civic Engagement Table, which includes Communities for a New California, Jakara Movement, Hmong Innovating Politics, Fresno Metro Black Chamber of Commerce, Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, and Faith in the Valley.

When the Fresno County Clerk/Registar of Voters certified and released the final vote count on Oct. 14, of the gubernatorial recall election held on Sept. 14, the results were nearly identical with forecasts by Fresno Speaks 2021.

The Fresno Speaks 2021 survey sampled registered voters in the City of Fresno between July 24 and Aug. 23 and included questions about intention to vote in the recall election. The Community and Labor Center published a fact sheet on the survey findings of the gubernatorial recall elections on Sept. 8, one week before the official election day and the end of voting. The results of the survey and the actual certified results are presented below.

Table 1: Comparison of City of Fresno gubernatorial recall vote between CLC survey and certified results

The Community and Labor Center Survey had a margin of error of +/- 3 points at the 95% confidence level. The final results show that the representative survey was less than 1 percentage point away from predicting the final certified vote total.

The survey also included a number of questions about the pandemic, public safety, the city budget, police reform, and civic engagement.

This was the second year in a row that the Community and Labor Center has partnered with the Fresno Civic Engagement Table in conducting a representative survey in the city. (2020 Fresno Speaks survey results). The Fresno Speaks gubernatorial recall survey findings were presented by community organizations at a public event in Fresno on Sept. 9.

Certified election results and CLC survey