Regardless of the results of Monday night's Iowa caucuses, new polls suggest that Republicans vying for the presidential nomination face the equivalent of a brick wall on Super Tuesday, in the form of former President Trump.
In California, one of 15 states that held Republican primaries on March 5, two-thirds of voters considered likely to participate in the Republican primary said they would vote for Trump, according to the latest poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies. , co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. This is an increase from the already dominant 57% in October.
The poll, conducted Jan. 4-8, suggests California conservatives could provide a significant boost to Trump's efforts to clinch his party's nomination early in the primary season, despite their relatively light presence in the first primary states.
This year's primaries are the first under new winner-take-all rules established last summer by the California Republican Party, which allocate all 169 delegates (the most of any state) to a candidate who wins. more than 50% of the votes.
California's delegation represents nearly 14% of the delegates needed to secure the Republican nomination.
“It's a different ball game now, and it will certainly benefit Trump if he can deliver on these numbers,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS poll. “If Trump wins in California, he has a long way to go to secure the nomination.”
Previously, Republican presidential candidates received three delegates for each congressional district they won in California, meaning several candidates could make gains in the Golden State.
According to recent polls, Trump has a similar lead in several other Super Tuesday states. In total, just over a third of the delegates to the Republican convention will decide that day. Trump's strategists hope to win enough to put the nomination out of contention at that point, which would be before he begins any of the four criminal trials he faces.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley is now Trump's closest competitor in California, but she is a distant second, with the support of 11% of likely voters, according to the new poll.
Haley's supporters hope that a strong showing in Iowa, along with a possible victory in New Hampshire later this month, can give her enough momentum to truly challenge Trump for the nomination.
The survey suggests why it will be so difficult. He performs best among the relatively small segments of California Republicans who described themselves as politically moderate or liberal and those with graduate education. Among voters who describe themselves as “strongly conservative,” who play a huge role in the Republican primary, 5% support her.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who was leading Trump in California in February of last year, is “dropping like a stone,” DiCamillo said. DeSantis is now the choice of 8% of the state's likely Republican voters.
The general election is a different story. The outcome of the race has been clouded by Trump's legal battles, President Biden's declining popularity among younger voters and Latinos, and the presence of independent and third-party candidates, including progressive activist Cornel West and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The poll suggests that support for Biden in California remains tepid, despite the state's deeply blue politics.
Half of California voters have a favorable opinion of Biden, while 48% say their opinion is unfavorable. His job approval among all registered voters (44% approve and 52% disapprove) has not changed significantly since October, when, for the first time, a majority of Californians disapproved of Biden's job performance.
“It's underwater, which is not a good place to be in a blue state,” DiCamillo said.
Support for Biden has further eroded among some groups of voters, including Latinos.
Democrats have a 2-to-1 voter registration advantage over Republicans among Latinos in California, DiCamillo said. But the poll found that only 38% of likely Latino voters in California have a favorable opinion of Biden. That number drops to 34% among Latinos for whom Spanish is their dominant language, a group that in past elections has tended to be more Democratic than other Latinos.
Biden is also struggling to retain the support of young voters. Only 4 in 10 likely voters under 30 have a positive opinion of Biden, compared to 6 in 10 likely voters over 75.
“Those are big changes, and they're typically a very key Democratic constituency,” DiCamillo said.
When asked about a hypothetical five-candidate field that includes West, Kennedy and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, the poll found that Biden would have a 16-point lead over Trump in California, 47%-31%, significantly less than their 30-point lead. margin of victory in 2020. The poll found 6% support for Kennedy, 2% for West and 1% for Stein, while 12% of likely voters remained undecided.
In a head-to-head race without third-party candidates, Biden's lead over Trump would increase to 19 points, 56%-37%, with 7% undecided, according to the poll. If Vice President Kamala Harris were the Democratic nominee, she would beat Trump in the state by a nearly identical margin, 55%-37%.
Biden would also beat Haley in California, 51%-34%, but with 16% of voters undecided, according to the poll.
The discomfort of younger voters and Latinos with Biden is not exclusive to California. In some swing states, where the race is much closer, polls have found Biden trailing Trump in hypothetical matchups in 2024.
But the mixed reception to Biden's job performance is better than how California voters view Trump: 34% positively, 63% negatively, including 58% whose opinion of the former president is “very unfavorable.”
Kennedy, who is running as an independent, has garnered double-digit support in some swing-state polls. That's not the case in California, where he polls at 6% of likely voters.
Kennedy worked as an environmental lawyer in New York for years, but now lives part-time in Los Angeles with his wife, actress Cheryl Hines. He has highlighted his ties to California since he launched his campaign, filming videos on the Venice Boardwalk and in the Santa Monica Mountains and hosting fundraisers with Westside yoga teachers.
That appeal doesn't appear to have worked in California, where his approval rating is 31%, according to the poll.
Nearly two-thirds of California Democrats report disliking Kennedy, who spent decades as a Democrat and ran as a Democrat in the presidential primary until launching his independent candidacy in October.
“Republicans have much more positive views of Kennedy” than Democrats or nonpartisan voters, DiCamillo said. “It's really interesting.”
The poll found that 50% of California Republicans have a very favorable or somewhat favorable opinion of Kennedy, who founded the anti-vaccine organization Children's Health Defense.
Among conservative voters, Kennedy is the second most popular political figure after Trump, suggesting he could be an option for disaffected Republicans.
West, who launched an independent bid for president in October, is much less known among California voters than Kennedy. The poll found that 15% of likely California voters have a favorable opinion of the progressive activist, while 27% say they view him unfavorably and 58% have no opinion.
The Berkeley IGS poll was conducted Jan. 4-8 online among a random sample of 8,199 registered voters, including a weighted subsample of 4,470 likely primary voters and 1,351 likely Republican primary voters.
Results were weighted to match census and voter registration benchmarks, so margin of error estimates may be imprecise; However, the results have an estimated margin of error of 2 percentage points in either direction for the full sample of likely voters and 3.5 percentage points for the Republican primary sample.
