There’s a good article in the Union-Tribune on the new Field Poll released today on Proposition 8′s chances in November.  While the big numbers (55% opposed) are encouraging, the article has a rare but informative breakdown on the demographics of the two sides.

When the Field Poll is broken down into 18 political and demographic subgroups, majority support for Proposition 8 is evident in only four: voters who call themselves conservatives (72 percent), Republicans (66 percent), evangelical Christians (60 percent) and Protestants (52 percent).

Majority opposition appears among almost all the rest: self-described liberals (91 percent), Democrats (75 percent), people with no religious preference or a religious preference other than Protestant or Catholic (71 percent), people who have done some post-graduate work (68 percent), voters who consider themselves middle-of-the-road (58 percent), residents of coastal counties (57 percent), voters unaffiliated with either major political party (56 percent), Catholics (55 percent), women (55 percent) and men (54 percent).

There’s also a good discussion in the article on how responses varied depending on how the initiative was characterized.  Apparantly voters are less inclined to take away a right then to block a new one from coming into existence.