Tom Campbell is running (against Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore) for the GOP nomination for the California senate race against Barbara Boxer. Last week the National Organization for Marriage (of which I am founder and president) launched the “Two Peas in a Pod” ad pointing out that Campbell, like Boxer, is pro-taxes and pro-gay marriage. His campaign responded by saying that everyone knows Tom is for gay marriage. But before we launched that ad, we polled. NBC Bay Area reports on that poll (here), as does Capitol Weekly.
Bottom line? Tom is wrong. Just 2 percent of his own voters know he favors gay marriage. His own voters were seven times more likely to say that he opposes gay marriage than to correctly identify him as a pro-gay marriage Republican. By a three-to-one margin, pro-Campbell and undecided voters said learning he supports gay marriage and opposed Prop 8 makes them less likely to support him.
The same poll shows that GOP likely primary voters support Prop 8 by a five-to-one margin.
Bottom line: I think Tom Campbell is about to find out, as Dede Scozzafava did, that it is not a good idea to be for gay marriage if you are Republican.