Polls show close race for second in governor campaign
With less than two weeks to go before the June 5 election, two new polls show that the primary for California governor has turned into a battle for second place.
Both polls confirm months-long trends showing Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom leading the pack, with Republican businessman John Cox and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa in second and third.
A poll from the Public Policy Institute of California released Wednesday put Newsom at 25 percent, with Cox at 19 percent and Villaraigosa at 15 percent among likely voters.
Another poll from the University of Southern California and the Los Angeles Times conducted over the last month found the contest for second place even closer, with Newsom at 21 percent, Cox at 11 percent and Villaraigosa at 10 percent.
Bringing up the rear were State Treasurer John Chiang and former state schools chief Delaine Eastin, and Assemblyman Travis Allen, a Republican. In the PPIC poll, Allen had 11 percent, Chiang had 9 percent and Eastin had 6 percent. In the USC poll, Chiang had 6 percent, Allen had 5 percent and Eastin had just 3 percent.
Meanwhile, both polls found Sen. Dianne Feinstein a clear favorite for reelection to the U.S. Senate, with former State Senate President Kevin de León, also a Democrat, in second and above a crowded field of little-known Republican candidates. Feinstein had 41 percent and de León had 17 percent in the PPIC poll, while Feinstein had 31 percent and de León had 7 percent in the USC poll. Neither poll found a Republican candidate above 3 percent.
Mark Baldassare, the PPIC poll’s director, said both races had stayed remarkably consistent since the end of last year.
In the governor’s contest, “the biggest movement has been for John Cox, who started out at 9 percent and today is at 19 percent,” as he’s found wider Republican support, Baldassare said.
The results also give context to the intense and sometimes puzzling politicking surrounding the primary, in which the top two candidates regardless of party will go on to the general election.
Newsom’s campaign has been actively working to boost Cox into the top two, airing TV ads contrasting the two candidates and raising Cox’s name recognition. The lieutenant governor would be heavily favored in a traditional Democratic-vs-Republican race against Cox. Newsom said at a debate this month that he would prefer to face a Republican and “either of these will do.”
“If one of the Republicans ends up in the top two, Gavin Newsom can take the next five months off and go to Hawaii,” said Garry South, a Democratic strategist who’s worked for both Newsom and Villaraigosa in the past.
Newsom also unveiled a barrage of new ads this week hitting Villaraigosa and Chiang, in a bid to keep their support down and barring any unforeseen glitches, wrap up the race in June instead of in November.
Meanwhile, an independent pro-charter school campaign backing Villaraigosa has recently targeted Cox, aiming to lower his numbers and get the former L.A. mayor into the top two. In mailers to Republican voters, the pro-Villaraigosa group attacked Cox as a “Democratic activist” with a “liberal record,” and highlighting the fact that Cox didn’t vote for President Trump in 2016.
Cox, however, got a major boost when Trump endorsed him in a tweet last week. He’s trumpeted that support on talk radio, hoping the president’s stamp of approval will help him consolidate support among GOP voters.
“Cox ought to be talking about Trump all the time,” said Bob Shrum, the director of USC’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics. “It will hurt him in the general, but it’s his best hope of getting into the top two.”
Even though both polls put Cox above Villaraigosa, the former mayor has a strong financial advantage, including his independent supporters. Campaigns supporting the former mayor have spent more than $12 million on expenditures backing him, while Newsom’s backers have spent $4 million.
The next two weeks might be a test of just how much a Trump endorsement tweet is worth — and whether the president’s backing will be more helpful to Cox than the millions of outside money is to Villaraigosa. Those are “the two political wildcards in this race,” Baldassare said.
Besides the state’s two marquee races, the PPIC poll found Californians were closely divided on the issue of single-payer health care, which has become a major point of contention in the governor’s race. Fortyone percent of likely voters said they supported a single-payer, government-run health care system, even if it meant raising taxes, while 12 percent said they’d back it if it didn’t raise taxes — a highly unlikely prospect — and another 41 percent opposed the idea altogether. The results were heavily split by party.
In addition, half of all Californians and three-fourths of Democrats polled believe that the Russian government tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election with intentional help from the Trump campaign. An additional 12 percent believe the Russians played a role without the assistance of team Trump, while 25 percent said they thought Vladimir Putin’s regime didn’t try to influence the vote.
Among all adult Californians polled, 44 percent approve of Gov. Jerry Brown’s job performance, while 38 percent disapprove. Only 30 percent think Trump is doing a good job, while 63 percent disapprove of him — although three-fourths of Republicans approve of Trump, which is good news for Cox.
The PPIC poll had a margin of error of plus and minus 4.1 percent for the 901 likely voters it surveyed. It was conducted with live telephone interviews on both landlines and cellphones in English and in Spanish, and gave respondents only a curated selection of the top candidates.
The USC poll, on the other hand, was online and presented respondents with a randomized list of all of the dozens of candidates who will appear on the ballot. It surveyed 517 likely voters had a margin of error of plus and minus 4 percent.