A recent poll released on Sunday indicates that former President Trump has regained the lead among California’s Republican primary voters for the 2024 election, surpassing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
In a recent survey conducted by the University of California-Berkeley Institute of Government Studies (IGS), it was found that 44 percent of likely GOP primary voters in California expressed their support for Trump, while 26 percent favored DeSantis, giving Trump an 18-point lead over his competitor.
Trump Leads DeSantis in California GOP Poll
Just three months ago, the same poll showed that Trump was trailing behind DeSantis by 8 points, with 37 percent of respondents supporting DeSantis, who officially entered the race in the previous week, and 29 percent backing Trump, who announced his candidacy in November.
The survey also included twelve other Republican candidates, but none of them garnered more than 4 percent of the state’s likely GOP voters. Thirteen percent of respondents chose the “other/undecided” option.
Among registered Republicans in the state, Trump’s favorability rating has increased over the past three months, while DeSantis’s rating experienced a slight decline. From February to the present month, Trump’s favorable rating rose from 69 percent to 74 percent, whereas DeSantis’s rating dipped from 79 percent to 75 percent.
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Implications for the GOP Presidential Primary in California
IGS co-director G. Cristina Mora commented on the survey results, highlighting the challenge faced by Republican candidates in gaining momentum with Trump as a competitor. Mora stated that even in California, where a majority of voters view Trump unfavorably, his presence still carries significant weight, with Republican voters feeling that he is being treated unfairly in both the courts and public opinion.
Mark DiCamillo, the director of the Berkeley IGS poll, emphasized that Trump’s lead over DeSantis is broad-based, but he particularly appeals to strongly conservative Republicans, men, non-college graduates, and voters aged 50-64.
The survey also explored the reactions of voters to Trump being found liable in a sexual abuse case involving writer E. Jean Carroll in New York. Three out of four respondents believed that Trump would not receive a fair trial in New York, and 66 percent downplayed the seriousness of the verdict.
Regarding the investigations into Trump’s post-2020 election actions, 86 percent of surveyed
California Republicans believed that these investigations were primarily driven by politics and political revenge rather than a pursuit of justice and law.
However, only 35 percent of all California voters shared this view, and two-thirds of the state’s population believed that Trump could receive a fair trial in New York, with the jury’s verdict deserving serious consideration.
The survey was conducted from May 17 to 22 and involved 7,465 registered California voters, including 1,853 registered Republicans and 1,472 likely to vote in the state’s GOP presidential primary in March 2024.
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