A Berkeley IGS poll shows Democrat Xavier Becerra begins the general election campaign for California governor with a big lead over Republican Steve Hilton.
Democrat Xavier Becerra opens the general election race for California governor with a commanding 52%-31% lead over Republican Steve Hilton, a new UC Berkeley IGS/L.A.
Times poll finds. The matchup looks like a classic partisan battle: Democrats overwhelmingly back Becerra and outnumber Republicans statewide, while Hilton’s endorsement from the deeply unpopular President Trump could hinder him in November. Becerra, whose surge followed Eric Swalwell’s scandal-driven exit, performed better among progressive voters than billionaire Tom Steyer, whose $216-million campaign couldn’t overcome negative ratings or Becerra’s stronger appeal on the left.earning them the opportunity to face-off in the general election.
, who was backed by 31%, according to a UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll which was co-sponsored by The Los Angeles Times. The remainder were undecided.
“It looks very much like a traditional, partisan-based general election, with most of the Democrats, over 80%, behind Becerra as the campaign starts,” said IGS Poll Director Mark DiCamillo. “Even though Hilton has over 80% of the Republicans, the Democrats outnumber Republicans by 20 points in the state, and that gives the Democratic candidates a huge advantage, which Becerra is clearly taking advantage of in this election.
”The poll found that Democratic and Republican voters were extremely loyal to their party’s candidate. Among Democrats, 82% said they would support Becerra in the general election, while 84% of Republicans said the same about Hilton. Becerra also had an edge among voters registered as no party preference or registered with other parties — who make up almost a third of the state electorate. Among those voters, 43% backed Becerra, 28% supported Hilton and 29% were undecided, the poll showed.
Along age, gender, racial and geographic lines, voters preferred Becerra to Hilton nearly across the board. The only geographic region where voters preferred Hilton to Becerra are those in the North Coast/Sierra region, which makes up about 2% of the electorate, DiCamillo said. Advertisement More than a third of Republicans, 37%, said Trump’s endorsement made them more likely to support Hilton.
But while it helped Hilton consolidate the Republican vote in the primary, helping him finish in second place, it will likely hurt him in the general election, DiCamillo said. Trump remains deeply unpopular in California; the poll released Thursday showed 69% of voters disapprove of the president’s performance while 29% approve.
“A majority of Californians have a very strong negative view of the president, so Hilton’s backing by the president will not be nearly as beneficial to him in the general as it was in the primary,” he said. A former Biden Cabinet secretary, state attorney general and longtime congressman from Los Angeles, Becerra had been wallowing in the low single-digits in public opinion polls less than three months ago. His fortunes changed when former Rep.
Eric Swalwell, one of the Democratic front-runners, dropped out of the governor’s race after he was accused of sexual assault and misconduct, which he denies. Democratic voters and interest groups quickly coalesced behind Becerra, who was seen as a steady candidate with a long resume in California politics and a record of fighting the Trump administration.
In two months, he went from polling at 5% in a March IGS poll to 25% in a late May poll and finishing first in the unofficial primary vote count. With 91% of ballots tallied as of Wednesday afternoon, Becerra led with 27.9% of the vote compared to 25% for Hilton, according to the Associated Press, which declared Becerra and Hilton the two winners.
Billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmentalist Tom Steyer was in third place with 22.5% — knocking the Democrat out of contention for the November election. The poll also showed that in the end, “Becerra was the only one of the major candidates who ended the primary race with a favorable image among the overall electorate, even in the face of all the negative ads that Steyer was running” against him, DiCamillo said.
Just before the primary election, 44% of likely primary voters surveyed had a favorable view of Becerra compared to 38% who viewed him unfavorably. Hilton and Steyer were upside down — 31% had a favorable opinion of Hilton compared to 38% unfavorable, and 39% had a favorable view of Steyer while 43% saw him unfavorably. Though Steyer had aggressively courted progressive voters and secured the backing of left-wing individuals and groups like Rep.
Ro Khanna and Our Revolution, a group founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders , the final IGS poll before the election showed more progressive voters ended up backing Becerra.
“It’s really one of the factors that was responsible for Steyer’s campaign not being successful,” DiCamillo said. Progressive voters were “a target audience for Steyer, but Becerra was able to have an advantage there. ”The poll was conducted online in English and Spanish among 8,578 registered California voters. The survey has a margin of error of 2% in either direction.
Rebuilding L.A. : How One Altadena Neighborhood Builds Back, Piece By Piece It turns out you can burn down a neighborhood and not destroy a community. We’ve seen evidence of this all across L.A. and so we will head back to one neighborhood that’s a good example of that bond: West Poppyfields Drive in Altadena. Today we discuss one of the pivotal events of the 1960s: the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.
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