Democrat Xavier Becerra holds a strong, 18-point lead against Republican Steve Hilton in California\u2019s upcoming election for governor, according to a new Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll.<\/p>\n
The poll found 55% of voters are backing Becerra compared to 37% supporting Hilton, while 7% remain undecided.<\/p>\n
Berkeley IGS surveyed about 4,000 voters online in early August. The organization regularly surveys California voters on elections, ballot measures and other statewide issues.<\/p>\n
Eric Schickler, a UC Berkeley political science professor and co-director of Berkeley IGS, said while the primary election was \u201cchaotic and unpredictable\u201d \u2014 with more than 60 candidates and a tight race between Becerra, Hilton and Democrat Tom Steyer, who has since been eliminated \u2014 the general election is more typical.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is shaping up to be normal for California governor\u2019s general election,\u201d Schickler said. \u201cAnd so that is a lot more predictable. This poll indicates it would take something really shocking and unexpected to prevent \u2026 Becerra winning fairly comfortably.\u201d<\/p>\n
The poll found a sharp partisan split between candidates, as Democrats overwhelmingly supported Becerra and Republicans overwhelmingly supported Hilton.<\/p>\n
Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS poll, said although Becerra is a more moderate candidate than prior Democratic candidates like Steyer, he\u2019s now garnered support from across the Democratic Party. According to the poll, more than 90% of progressives and 93% of Democratic Socialists are in favor of Becerra.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s kind of been able to solidify his support among the different wings of the party,\u201d Schickler said.<\/p>\n
Almost all demographics of voters \u2014 across age, gender and race or ethnicity \u2014 are likely to be supporting Becerra.<\/p>\n
If elected, Becerra would be California\u2019s first Latino governor since 1875. But Schickler says that doesn\u2019t seem to be playing a major role in his popularity.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe polls about as well among Latinos, white voters, Black voters and Asian Americans as you would expect for a Democrat,\u201d Schickler said. \u201cWe\u2019re not seeing his status as the first Latino candidate at this stage playing a big role. It may well have helped him in the primary, but in the general election, in a state like California, Democrat versus Republican is just a defining feature.\u201d<\/p>\n
Becerra is also leading among voters without a party preference nearly 2-to-1. It\u2019s a hurdle Hilton has to overcome if he wants to win.<\/p>\n
\u201cHilton has a long row to hoe,\u201d DiCamillo said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to have to try to convince the no-party-preference voters or even some of the Democrats to get on his bandwagon. But that\u2019s a tall order for a Republican in this state.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democrat Xavier Becerra holds a strong, 18-point lead against Republican Steve Hilton in California\u2019s upcoming election for governor,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[18367,138720,140968,3923,7,17980,15174,14833,26070,143,145,144,6214,17382,25299,149,3707],"class_list":["post-435935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-asian-american","tag-berkeley-igs-poll","tag-berkeley-institute-for-governmental-studies","tag-black","tag-california","tag-democrat","tag-eric-schickler","tag-latino","tag-mark-dicamillo","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-republican","tag-steve-hilton","tag-tom-steyer","tag-uc-berkeley","tag-xavier-becerra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}