Poll: DeSantis leads Trump by wide margin in California
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has surged to a lead among California Republicans over former President Donald Trump for the party’s 2024 presidential nomination, a poll released Friday found.
About 37% of GOP voters backed DeSantis, while 29% preferred Trump, according to the new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. These numbers are a near mirror image of the support for the two in an August poll conducted by Berkeley.
Other hopefuls trailed far behind, with none receiving more than 7% in the poll.
California matters to Republican presidential contenders despite its overall Democratic majority. Nearly 2.3 million voters cast ballots for Trump in the state’s March 2020 primary, the most in any state in the nation.
DeSantis has taken a particularly strong lead among Republican voters with a college degree, who back him by more than 2 to 1 over Trump. The former president has the support of Republicans who did not attend college, and the two run close to even among those who have some college experience but not a four-year degree.
Among California Republicans who voted for Trump in 2020, DeSantis leads by 11 points in the new poll; he trailed Trump by 14 points among such voters six months ago.
“There is serious defection among his ranks,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll. “These voters are now on board with DeSantis more than
Trump. That’s fairly significant.”
The poll results come just over a week before DeSantis is scheduled to visit Southern California, with speeches in Orange County and at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, spots where he will meet with wellheeled Republican donors and party leaders.
The survey also illuminated Californians’ complicated views about President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in a state where fellow Democrats outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 among registered voters.
While Biden’s approval ratings improved in recent months, with 57% of the state’s voters now praising his job performance, the same share of voters don’t want the 80-year-old to run for reelection next year.
Nearly 6 in 10 of those surveyed were not enthusiastic about Harris running for the White House if Biden decides not to seek another term, even with her roots in California. Harris grew up in the Bay Area and served as San Francisco’s district attorney, the state’s attorney general and California’s U.S. senator.
“Usually, it’s the case that people in your own area are most positive about you, and people outside of your area learn more about you and eventually get on board. That hasn’t been the case for Kamala,” DiCamillo said. “In fact, looking at … the enthusiasm [voters have for her running] for president, in the Bay Area, it’s less than it is in Los Angeles. That’s telling to me. She’s never had a real strong base of support in the Bay Area, and it’s true the entire two-year period of following her as vice president.”