I’ve heard this echoed elsewhere, and I’ll echo it here too. I was reading a WaPo article on the recall, and nowhere did they mention the polling on the first question, namely whether to recall Gray Davis. Instead they already appear to have made the assumption that yes, of course, Gray Davis will be recalled.
The nonpartisan California Field Poll showed Bustamante with 30 percent, Schwarzenegger with 25 percent and McClintock with 13 percent. With McClintock out, the poll had Schwarzenegger narrowly leading Bustamante, 33 percent to 31 percent, a statistical dead heat.