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California recall voting winds down
NBC, MSNBC and news services


California voters expressed unhappiness with the job that incumbent Gray Davis has done as governor in early NBC News exit polling. But among those voters interviewed thus far, half said they have a favorable opinion of Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger. Voters expressed misgivings about his campaign, with a majority of those polled saying he evaded the issues in his nine-week campaign.

THE SPECTACLE of California's recall election drew to a close Tuesday, as voters turned out in substantial numbers to decide whether to depose Davis -- and perhaps replace him with Schwarzenegger, Hollywood action hero and novice politician.
Davis fought to avoid becoming the nation's first governor in 82 years to be recalled from office. He was elected to a second term just 11 months ago, but with less than 50 percent of the vote, dragged down by his personal unpopularity and voters' anger over the state's struggling economy.

Recent polls suggested voters favored throwing the Democratic incumbent out of office and installing the moderate Republican Schwarzenegger. But it was uncertain whether the "Terminator" star's appeal had been tarnished by 11th-hour allegations that he groped women and spoke admiringly of Adolf Hitler.

Hundreds of Republican and Democratic party lawyers scoured polling places Tuesday for irregularities. Polling stations were scheduled to close at 8 p.m. PT (11 p.m. ET), but Democratic officials said they would be ready to seek an injunction to keep polls open later if they found any problems or delays in the voting.

Democratic officials said they were especially concerned about potential problems in Los Angeles County, where most voters were using a punch-card ballot. The county is also using 60 percent fewer polling sites than in last November's general election.

NBC EXIT POLL FINDS UNHAPPY VOTERS
With the recall vote's outcome still unknown, voters expressed opinions on other questions in an early NBC News exit poll. The pre-election polls consistently found substantial discontent among Californians with Davis' performance. The voters who cast their ballots Tuesday were also not pleased with the leadership that the Democratic incumbent has shown. Fully half of the voters said they strongly disapprove of the job that Davis has done as governor; nearly one in four somewhat disapproves of his work.

On the other side, just about one in four voters approves of the job Davis has done, with 7 percent giving him strong approval and 20 percent expressing a more reserved positive view.

Nearly three-quarters of voters -- 72 percent -- said they disapprove of the job Davis has done as governor.

Many voters had already voted using absentee ballots. But among those who voted in person thus far Tuesday, only 10 percent said they made up their minds in the past week. Fully 83 percent said they had decided over a month ago.

The NBC News exit poll on the California recall election is based on interviews with voters outside polling places on Tuesday across the state, as well as with those who voted by absentee ballot.

The early exit poll data is based on interviews with more than 2,415 voters as they left 60 precincts across the state on Tuesday. In addition, the data includes the results of telephone interviews with 400 California citizens who voted via absentee ballots before Election Day. The telephone interviews were conducted from Sept. 29 through Oct. 5.

'ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC'
Davis and the leading candidates to replace him, meanwhile, had all voted by midday.

"I feel absolutely terrific," said Davis, a Democrat, who voted in West Hollywood. "I have always trusted the voters of California, and I know they're going to do the right thing today."

Schwarzenegger, whom opinion polls had shown as the leading replacement candidate, created a stir when he arrived to vote with his wife, Maria Shriver, at a Pacific Palisades mansion. Hundreds of people were there, most of them reporters and photographers.

(Shriver is on leave from "Dateline NBC." MSNBC is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC News.)

Schwarzenegger said he had no trouble going through the 135 candidates to find his name at his polling place in Los Angeles: "You always look for the longest name."

CHARACTER MATTERS
While officials expected a heavy turnout, others said campaign mudslinging could have turned off many potential voters.

The final days of campaigning focused on character instead of issues, largely because of sexual misconduct allegations against Schwarzenegger, who acknowledged that he had "behaved badly" in the past but accused Davis of "dirty campaigning."

That did not stop the Democratic Party machine, which has been running television ads asking women if they really wanted a governor who was facing allegations that he groped women. The impact of the issue was difficult to predict, however, because 2 million voters had already cast absentee ballots before the allegations surfaced Thursday.

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the only prominent Democrat on the ballot, and Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock remained the only other candidates polling in double digits.

RESULTS COULD BE SLOW
A close vote could delay the results for days, while also leading to recount demands.

The chaotic campaign, which survived a handful of legal challenges after a Republican-led effort brought it to the ballot, was without parallel in the Golden State.

Those who did turn out were asked to choose the ending of a saga that has captivated the nation for months: whether Davis becomes the nation's second governor to be recalled, and if so, who should replace him. The governor of North Dakota, recalled in 1921, is the only U.S. governor to ever be voted out of office in a special recall election.

There have been 31 previous attempts to force a recall vote in California, including three against Gov. Ronald Reagan in the 1960s. All but a handful failed to gather enough petition signatures to force an election.

SCHWARZENEGGER STRATEGY
With allegations dogging him that he had groped and sexually harassed as many as 16 women over the last three decades, Schwarzenegger spent the last day of campaigning Monday with his wife and other female supporters.

Later, in Huntington Beach, Schwarzenegger was joined at a rally by his mother-in-law, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who hugged and kissed him as he began speaking.

Scores of female supporters stood behind him at events, holding signs proclaiming "Remarkable Women Join Arnold." As he took the stage at one event, the actor smiled broadly and said, "To all the incredible women, thank you."

Schwarzenegger continued to hammer away at Davis, telling supporters in San Jose that he fell among a class of politicians who only knew how to "spend, spend, spend" and "tax, tax, tax."

DAVIS STRATEGY
For his part, Davis reached out to his core of labor support, marching Monday in San Francisco with hundreds of firefighters, most of them in blue "No Recall" T-shirts. Many in the crowd were out-of-state residents attending a safety conference.

"If you give me the chance to finish my term, I will do it with all the passion, all the humanity I can muster because my goal is to make your life better," Davis told the crowd, which was chanting, "No recall! No recall!"

Davis' popularity plunged following the downturn in the economy and the burst of the high-tech bubble in particular. Californians face an $8 billion state budget deficit, persistent unemployment and struggling schools.

BUSTAMANTE, MCCLINTOCK
Bustamante, who once led among replacement candidates in independent polls, said his internal polls showed him closing on Schwarzenegger.

Bustamante acknowledged in an interview Tuesday with MSNBC-TV that while he had campaigned against the recall, "yes, I would be disappointed" if it failed.

"But you carry on," he told MSNBC's Ashleigh Banfield in Elk Grove, the Sacramento suburb where he had just voted. Noting that even if he were elected governor, he would not take office for as long as a month, he said, "Wednesday morning at 9 o'clock, I will be back at work as lieutenant governor."

Looming over the voting were the allegations, including more from a woman who came forward Monday, that Schwarzenegger groped the women and sometimes made crude comments during encounters dating from 1970 to 2000.

McClintock and Bustamante said the allegations were helping their campaigns.

McClintock, who has rejected Republican pressure to drop out of the race, said he was skeptical of the eleventh-hour complaints. But he also indicated that the allegations were boosting his standing among voters. "People are saying, 'Thank God you stayed in the race,'" McClintock told MSNBC on Monday.

LATEST ALLEGATION
The latest woman to come forward, Rhonda Miller of Los Angeles, said Schwarzenegger lifted her shirt to photograph her breasts and groped her twice, in 1991 when she worked as a stunt double on the film "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and again in 1994 on the set of "True Lies."

Schwarzenegger did not mention the allegations at campaign stops, but in a statement, he denied Miller's claims while admitting making crude comments about photographs of staff members posted in a trailer during the filming of "Terminator 2."

"If my crude comments offended anyone, I apologize. And as I have stated a number of times in this campaign, I have occasionally engaged in rowdy behavior. With regards to all of the other comments that were made by Ms. Miller, they did not occur," the statement said.

Support for the recall has run between 50 percent and 60 percent in numerous polls in the past month. But Davis told NBC News on Sunday that he felt "a sea change in the last 72 hours," with an internal poll showing voters about even on whether to recall him.

That time period coincides with the allegations against Schwarzenegger. First, Los Angeles Times reporting led to 11 women who alleged that he had groped them in incidents from 1975 to 2000. Then a film producer alleged that the actor had expressed some admiration for Adolf Hitler. And Sunday, four more women stepped forward claiming sexual harassment.




MSNBC's Ashleigh Banfield and David Shuster,

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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