Poll: High marks for Newsom on coronavirus

Governor’s ratings not as favorable on housing, homelessness

Those regular coronavirus pandemic briefings appear to be helping the governor’s image.

According to a new statewide poll, nearly twothirds of California voters (64%) approve of the job Gavin Newsom is doing — up seven points from his 57% approval rating last year.

The governor gets relatively high marks for his handling of the ongoing threat posed by COVID-19. But on the bread-and-butter issues Californians say they’re most concerned about, specifically housing and homelessness, he’s not so popular.

The poll, conducted in mid-September by the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley ( IGS), found that 49% of voters say the governor is doing an excellent or good job managing the coronavirus, while just 28% give him a poor or very poor rating. On housing costs, however, only 12% of voters say he’s doing an excellent job while 46% say he’s doing a poor or very poor job. The numbers are even worse on homelessness, with just 11% of voters giving him top marks and a whopping 55% rating the job he’s doing poor or very poor.

“These findings show California voters largely approve of Newsom’s handling of emergency issues like the pandemic, but have more reservations about his handling of long-term, systemic issues related to economic inequality, like housing costs,” IGS co- director Cristina Mora said in a statement.

The deadly and destructive wildfires continuing to plague the state aren’t helping Newsom either. While a quarter of the state’s voters say he’s doing a good or excellent job handling them, 39% feel he’s doing a poor or very poor job of managing them.

“The emerging threat of wildfires as a state issue is also an area in which voter evaluations are more negative than positive, suggesting an additional potential area of vulnerability for Governor Newsom,” said IGS co- director Eric Schickler.

Predictably, the former San Francisco mayor polls strongest among Democrats and in the San Francisco Bay Area. While support for Newsom is relatively stable across all age groups, his approval ratings are particularly high among Black voters and he receives more support from women than men.

The poll was conducted online in English and Spanish among 7,198 registered voters. Findings based on the overall sample of registered voters have a sampling error of approximately two percentage points.