Villaraigosa narrows gap with Newsom
22 percent favor lieutenant governor, while 17 percent look to L.A. ex-mayor
SACRAMENTO — In the crowded and ever-expanding race to become California’s next governor, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s early lead in the polls is narrowing as former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa gains ground, according to a new survey released Wednesday.
UC Berkeley’s IGS Poll found that 22 percent of likely voters
support Newsom — down from 28 percent in March — and 17 percent favor Villaraigosa, a six-point bump. Support was in the single digits for little-known Republicans John Cox and David Hadley and Democrats John Chiang, the state treasurer, and former state schools superintendent Delaine Eastin.
But a plurality of likely voters polled — 37 percent — said they didn’t have a preference.
“At this early stage, it appears that Undecided is going to be California’s next governor,” quipped Dan Schnur, a former GOP strategist who is now a lecturer in the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication.
Strategists caution that many things can happen between now and next June’s primary, from which the top two vote-getters — potentially both Democrats — emerge as candidates for the general election. They note that the field is probably not set — billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer and state Senate leader Kevin de León are widely rumored to be considering a run.
And Chiang, a favorite of Sacramento insiders who consider him a “sleeper candidate,” is in the position to gain support as the campaigns pick up and voters tune in, experts say.
“Nobody knows him,” Thad Kousser, a political science professor at UC San Diego, said of Chiang. “He hasn’t started running.”
Also striking about the new poll are the sharp demographic divides among the supporters of the two front-runners. Few would be surprised that the Bay Area — former San Francisco Mayor Newsom’s home turf — is Newsom territory, while Southern California prefers the Angeleno, Villaraigosa. But the poll also found that wealthier, white and black voters leaned heavily toward Newsom, while Latinos and those from low-income households showed a strong preference for Villaraigosa.
“You’re seeing big differences by race and ethnicity, big differences by region, big differences by economic class,” said Mark DiCamillo, who directs the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll.
“I think it foretells a very unpredictable race because with different segments having different preferences, it will eventually come to turnout: Which of those segments will come out in force?”
Newsom, who has championed gun control, marijuana legalization and gay marriage, has an overwhelming lead among Californians who describe themselves as “strongly liberal” — 60 percent, with another 20 percent of that group undecided.
But Newsom might find his liberal credentials to be a liability if he finds himself pitted against another Democrat in the general election, Kousser said.
“He has made himself into many people’s stereotype of the Bay Area liberal,” he said, “and that makes him really vulnerable to any Democrat who can make the top two.”
But if Republicans coalesce around a single candidate who secures a spot on the November ballot, experts say, his Democratic opponent would likely cruise to an easy victory.
The poll surveyed 1,628 Californians, including 885 likely voters, in six languages and dialects from May 4 to May 29. The maximum margin of error for the likely voter sample is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
DiCamillo said some of Villaraigosa’s recent veiled swipes at Newsom — calling out “Davos Democrats,” a reference to the elites who gather annually in the tony ski town in the Swiss Alps — seem to be playing to the class divides that appeared in the polls. But, the veteran pollster said, the wealthier white and highly educated voters from the Bay Area who are now in Newsom’s camp more reliably show up at the polls — which could make a big difference in a low-turnout election.
Newsom’s campaign declined to comment on the latest numbers. And Villaraigosa’s team downplayed his jump in the polls, which they called “encouraging.”
“Antonio Villaraigosa is not watching poll numbers,” said Eric Jaye, a strategist for the Villaraigosa campaign. Instead, he said, the candidate is “staying focused on his statewide effort to create millions more high-wage jobs, improve our schools and colleges so every child has an equal chance to succeed, and to give voice to every Californian — particularly the millions who are still left out or left behind.”