New CA Poll: Trump and Clinton Lead, Harris Leads Senate Race, But Latinos Prefer Sanchez

by Alex Gonzalez

The new poll released last night by California Public Institute of California show Donald is has 19 points lead over Ted Cruz. Trump leads his rivals with support from 38 percent of Republican primary likely voters while Ted Cruz gets only 19 percent of support among likely Republican voters in California, according to a statewide survey. Both John Kasich and Marco Rubio are in third place with 12 percent each.

CA 2It is unclear what will happen with those California Republicans, especial Latinos, who still support Marco Rubio who is no longer in the race. Result from last Tuesday in Arizona show that Rubio is still favored in the race. Marco Rubio came in third place in Arizona with 70,556 votes while John Kasich who is still in the race came in in fourth place with 53,040 vote. Moreover, the results from Florida show that Ted Cruz is favored very low among Latino voters.

The poll also show that:

In the Democratic race, most voters age 45 and older support Clinton (63%), while most younger voters support Sanders (63%). Clinton leads among Latino voters (58% to 35%), women (54% to 35%), and those who describe themselves as politically middle of the road (51% to 33%). Sanders leads among those who describe themselves as very liberal (57% to 41%) and among men (48% to 39%).

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  Harris Leads Senate Candidates, But Latinos Prefer Sanchez.

In the race to fill the seat of retiring U.S. senator Barbara Boxer, a third of likely voters (31%) say they are undecided. Among the candidates, Kamala Harris, Democratic state attorney general, has 26 percent support, followed by Loretta Sanchez, Democratic member of Congress, with 17 percent. Tom Del Beccaro, former chairman of the state Republican Party, has 9 percent and Duf Sundheim, also a former Republican Party chair, has 6 percent. Republican Ron Unz entered the race after the survey was completed. The top two vote getters in the June primary will advance to the November election. However, among likely Latino voters in California, Sanchez gets 36 percent of support while Harris receives only 22 percent.

 

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This preference for a Latino candidate among likely Latino voters was also similar to previous surveys when Rocky Chavez was still in the race and many Latino voters also favored Chavez over  Del Beccaro  and  Sundheim.

CA 4The previous poll in chart above showed  that  among Latinos Harris has only an 18% preference while Sanchez has a 31%. Moreover, among Republican, Harris has only a 14% favorable image. Similarly, among Latinos, Republicans Rocky Chavez has an 11% preference while Del Beccaro and Sundheim have only 1% respectively.

It is almost certain that  that Harris and Sanchez will move on to the run off since both have maintained the lead in first and second place since last years. It is unclear, though, whether Sanchez can empower  enough Latino support, and support from Republicans, to defeat Harris who is favored by party establishment and white liberals in the Bay Area  where turnout tend to be higher than in other areas of the state with large Latino vote blocs.

 

Alex Gonzalez is a political Analyst and Political Director for Latinos Ready To Vote. Comments to [email protected] or @AlexGonzTXCA