Optimism for state, but not U.S., poll finds

Most California voters approve of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget priorities, believe he’ll work well with the Legislature and are optimistic about the state’s overall direction, according to a new poll.

That flash of enthusiasm is the opposite of what they feel about the rest of the country, according to the survey released Wednesday by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California.

Two-thirds of likely voters surveyed say the country is on the wrong track, 47 percent say race relations in the U.S. are worse than they were a year ago and only 18 percent believe the new Congress and President Trump “will be able to work together and accomplish a lot in the next year” — the lowest level the institute has recorded on that question in 12 years of polling.

Their mood was sunnier about the future in California, where 51 percent of likely voters thought the state was “generally going in the right direction.”

Many voters are still sizing up Newsom, who was sworn in to office in January. The poll found that 43 percent of likely voters surveyed approved of the governor so far, 29 percent disapproved, 21 percent didn’t know enough about him to venture an opinion, and the rest replied “don’t know.”

But strong majorities like the spending priorities Newsom laid out in his budget last month. The poll found that 72 percent of those surveyed support Newsom’s plan to spend $1.8 billion to expand pre-kindergarten and early childhood programs, and 70 percent back his proposed $832 million increase for public colleges and universities.

Among likely voters, 65 percent feel Newsom will work well with the Legislature, where his fellow Democrats hold a supermajority of more than two-thirds of members of both chambers.

The survey offered some conflicting opinions on other issues, particularly immigration.

Asked what issue they wanted Newsom and the Legislature to work on together, poll respondents’ most popular response was “immigration/illegal immigration,” at 18 percent.

Yet only 28 percent of respondents described illegal immigration as a crisis, as Trump refers to it. Forty-two percent said it was “a serious problem but not a crisis.” The poll found that 62 percent of likely voters opposed the president’s signature proposal for dealing with immigration, building a wall along the U.S.Mexico border.

Housing, despite the state’s soaring prices, was the top priority for only 6 percent of those polled.

The institute surveyed 1,154 likely voters, in English and Spanish, via landlines and cell phones from Jan. 20-29. The margin of error was 4 percentage points.