Harris and Schiff Cruising to Victory in Deep Blue California
by J. Andrew Sinclair, Ph.D. & Kenneth P. Miller, J.D., Ph.D.
Harris builds huge lead over Trump in her home state.
Our poll indicates Democrats will continue their domination of California elections in this year’s presidential and U.S. Senate contests. Vice President Harris leads former President Trump in California by 27 points, 60%-33%. The poll was designed by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) and implemented by YouGov, Oct. 7-17. It includes 1,139 California registered voters and has a margin of error of 3.38.
In 2020, the Biden-Harris ticket defeated Trump in California by 64%-34%, a huge 6 million vote victory that accounted for nearly all of its 7 million vote margin in the national popular vote. This year, much attention is focused on whether Harris can run up the score in California enough to win the national popular vote and also help Democrats carry the state’s handful of competitive U.S. House seats. Conversely, the Trump campaign hopes to narrow the margin in California by making inroads among groups such as Hispanics.
In our poll, undecided and third-party voters were asked whether they lean toward Trump or Harris; adding those responses to the candidate totals results in Harris leading Trump 63%-34%–nearly identical to the outcome four years ago. Restricting the analysis to likely voters does not change the percentages.
Democrat Schiff poised to defeat Garvey in Senate race.
Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff holds a large lead over his Republican rival, former baseball star Steve Garvey. Schiff leads Garvey 56%-35%, with 9% of respondents saying they are undecided.
Schiff’s advantage over his Republican opponent is consistent with the Democratic Party’s formidable position in the state. Despite the large number of voters registered as “no party preference,” 58% of California’s registered voters either explicitly identify as Democrats or are independents who lean toward the Democratic Party (counted as Democrats in our reports). That means Democrats only have to win the votes of these Democratic identifiers to win statewide elections.
California Democrats show little sign of dissent or interest in crossing party lines. Our poll finds that, among Democrats: only 8% disapprove or strongly disapprove of the Biden Administration; 3% think Trump was a better president than Biden; 14% disapprove or strongly disapprove of the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom; 10% disapprove of Democrats in the state legislature; and 12% disapprove of Democrats in Congress.
CROSSTABS
Vice President Harris leads former President Trump in California among all demographic groups we identified, including both men and women, all age categories, all racial and ethnic groups, and all educational levels. This breadth of support for the Democratic candidate contrasts sharply with our findings elsewhere in the nation, where Trump leads among men, white voters, older voters, and those without college degrees.
As an example, our national survey shows that Trump leads Harris among white male respondents by 15 points (55%-40%), whereas in California, this demographic group supports Harris by 12 points (53%-41%). Similarly, Trump leads Harris among voters who have, at most, a high school education by 16 points (55%-39%), but in California these numbers are flipped, with Harris leading Trump among these voters by 15 points, 55%-40%.
Much attention has been paid to Trump’s inroads with minority voters, especially Hispanics. Our survey shows Trump gaining the support of 34% of Hispanic voters and 40% of Hispanic men across the nation, with 10% of these groups remaining undecided. In California, by comparison, Trump has had somewhat less success attracting the support of Hispanics. According to our survey, in California, 30% of Hispanic voters and 34% of Hispanic men back Trump, with 7% and 9% of these groups, respectively, undecided. By large margins, the state’s Hispanic voters support Harris.
The Survey
The data for this survey comes from the CMC-Rose Institute Fall 2024 Poll. The survey was designed by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College (CMC) and implemented online by YouGov between October 7, 2024 and October 17, 2024. The total sample of 1,139 registered voters was collected as part of a larger national survey, including respondents from the national sample and an additional 1,000 voters as a California oversample. The data was weighted by gender, age, race, education, and past presidential vote. YouGov created the “modeled frame” (the target YouGov uses in selecting respondents for inclusion and uses to create the survey weights) by using the American Community Survey (ACS) public use microdata file, public voter file records, the 2020 Current Population Survey (CPS) Voting and Registration Supplements, the 2020 National Election Pool (NEP) exit poll, and the 2020 CES surveys, including demographics and the 2020 presidential vote. The survey has a margin of error of 3.38 for the registered voters. To create a likely voter weight, respondents were screened for vote intention, and the data reweighted; the likely voter sample has a margin of error of 3.41.
The CMC-Rose Institute 2024 Poll is funded by the Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College, Claremont McKenna College Faculty Major Grant Award, and Betsy Sinclair, Washington University in St. Louis.
For more information, visit www.roseinstitute.org/2024-poll or contact CMC-Rose Institute Poll Director J. Andrew Sinclair at asinclair@cmc.edu.