GOP gubernatorial candidates Steve Hilton, Sheriff Chad Bianco top latest California poll
Two Republicans running for governor of California are leading the pack of candidates seeking to lead the nation's most populous state.
Steve Hilton, who became well-known in the U.S. as a Fox News contributor after leaving the U.K., where he was an adviser to former prime minister David Cameron, and later settled in California and became a U.S. citizen, is leading in the polls. He's closely followed by Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, among likely voters in the race to replace termed-out Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to a new poll from UC Berkeley and the Los Angeles Times.
While Hilton currently leads the primary field with 17% of likely voters, followed by Bianco with 16%, California voters “remain largely disengaged and unenthusiastic about the candidates and the election,” according to a press release from pollster Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll.
On the Democratic side, U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell has a slight lead with 14%, followed by former Rep. Katie Porter with 13%, the poll found. Climate advocate Tom Steyer is close behind with about 10% of likely voters.
An estimated 16% of voters remain undecided.
The Berkeley IGS-Times poll presented voters with each candidate’s name, their official job description and their party affiliation as they will appear on the ballot — a decision, DiCamillo said, aimed at simulating the Election Day experience. “History has shown that these descriptors play a role in guiding voter’s preferences, especially in contests where the candidates are not well-known,” he added.
The candidates are identified on the June primary ballot as follows:
- Steve Hilton, small business owner (R)
- Chad Bianco, Riverside County Sheriff (R)
- Eric Swalwell, U.S. Representative (D)
- Katie Porter, consumer protection advocate (D)
- Tom Steyer, climate advocate (D)
- Xavier Becerra, voting rights advocate (D)
- Antonio Villaraigosa, housing affordability
advocate (D) - Matt Mahan, mayor of San Jose (D)
- Betty Yee, family care navigator (D)
- Tony Thurmond, California State Senate
Superintendent of Public Instruction (D)
Despite the name recognition on both the GOP and Democratic sides, the polling also found “unusually large proportions of likely voters cannot offer an opinion of the candidates at this late very stage of the election campaign,” while “significant proportions of likely voters have no opinion” of even the race’s higher-profile candidates.
The findings come from a Berkeley IGS Poll conducted online March 9-15 among over 5,000 registered voters, nearly 3,890 of whom are considered likely to vote in the June primary election, according to DiCamillo.
The polling comes nearly two months before California voters head to the polls for a June primary. The two candidates who receive the most votes in that election will then face off in the November general election.
According to DiCamillo, the candidates who saw the “greatest movement in voter support” were Hilton, who saw likely voters more than double from 8% to 17%, and Steyer, who polled at just 1% last October.
During a Comeback California event at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills in January, Hilton said if elected, he would overturn Assembly Bill 1266, the 2013 legislation that enabled trans-identified male athletes to compete in women’s sports.
“It’s unconstitutional,” Hilton proclaimed. “It violates the principle of gender equality because what is it if it’s not discrimination against girls?”
In a survey released Feb. 25 by the Public Policy Institute of California, the top five candidates — Hilton, Porter, Bianco, Swalwell and Steyer — were locked in a statistical dead heat. The criteria with which voters said they were most concerned were the candidate's stand on the issues (66%) compared to the candidate’s character (17%), experience (11%), or political party (6%).
An overwhelming majority of voters (96%) said a candidate’s views on affordability and cost of living were either very or somewhat important in determining their vote.
