SACRAMENTO (AP) — A new poll finds growing support for ending California’s death penalty, but backers of an initiative on Tuesday’s ballot still lack the majority they need to pass it.

The Field Poll released Friday found that 45 percent of likely voters support ending executions in favor of life imprisonment even for murderers already on death row. Another 38 percent oppose Proposition 34, while nearly one-in-five remain undecided.

The poll found that a majority of voters now believe imposing the death penalty is more expensive to the state than a life sentence, a sign that the main message of the Proposition 34 campaign is having some success.

The telephone poll surveyed 1,566 voters in two waves between Oct. 17 and Oct. 30. It had a sampling error margin of 2.6 percentage points.

(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.)