Former president

Donald

Trump is so dominating his rivals that he’s on track to win all of California’s delegates to next year’s Republican convention, a win that would earn him a large chunk of the vote needed to clinch his third presidential nomination. to fetch.

The outcome of a new survey from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, highlights a turnaround from earlier this year. In February, Trump faced a serious challenge from Florida’s governor. Ron DeSantis among California Republicans.

The potential for Trump to win all of the state’s delegates also reflects his campaign’s work to change the rules of the contest in his favor.

In late July, California’s Republican Party changed its rules so that if a candidate wins more than 50% of the statewide vote in the March 5 primary, he or she will claim all of the votes.

169

The GOP delegates most of all the states in the country. Previously, the rules assigned delegates by congressional district. A candidate needs

just over 1,200

Convention delegates to win the nomination.

Trump’s campaign has pushed for a rule change, one of a series of such shifts the country has supported in states across the country. All the changes supported by his campaign result in a front-runner quickly clinching the Republican nomination.

The new poll shows approx

55%

of likely Republican voters plan to cast their primary vote for Trump. DeSantis support has plummeted

16%

less than half of what he had earlier this year.

“Californians have generally turned away from DeSantis,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the UC Berkeley Institute’s poll. The biggest beneficiary of DeSantis’ downturn is the former president. There is no doubt that he is loved by the Republican grassroots.

It’s a surprising development given that there seemed to be sentiment among Republicans seeking an alternative to Trump over the past year, DiCamillo added. That has changed and Trump is now the absolute favorite.

Capturing all of the California delegates would give Trump a huge advantage over the rest of the field, he noted.

The state party rule changes were one factor in the recent decision by a super-PAC that supported DeSantis to shut down major campaign operations in California and several other states, NBC News reported last week.

On the Democratic side, the poll showed President Biden has a big lead ahead of the California primary

66%

of the party voters who support him compared to

9%

for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and

3%

for Marianne Williamson.

About 1 in 6

Probably the Democratic voters said they were undecided.

Biden receives less support from young, Latino, and Asian-American voters than white and black voters. That difference in enthusiasm is unlikely to hurt his chances in California given his wide lead, but it reflects a problem for the president that could be serious elsewhere in the country.

Biden also has a big lead over Trump in any future election battle in the state, which isn’t surprising given California’s cobalt blue side.

Of the states’ 22 million registered voters,

46.9%

identify as Democrats,

23.8%

as Republicans,

22.5%

if no party preference and

6.8%

with other parties, according to the most recent statistics from the California Secretary of State.

The poll also looked at some key vulnerabilities for each of the top two candidates.

Among the state’s likely voters is

42%

said they believe Bidens is getting older than him

turns 82 shortly after 11/20 and would be 81

election day

11/5

will hurt him a lot in his re-election bid, compared to

32%

who thinks Trump’s legal troubles will hurt him a lot in his bid to win back the White House.

These legal issues could come to light just before the state primary. On March 4, the former president will go on trial in Washington on federal charges that he illegally attempted to overturn the result of the 2020 election, which he lost to Biden.

California will share its primary date with Texas, North Carolina and about a dozen other states, which will split together

over a third

of Republican delegates.

The investigation has been carried out

August 24-29

shortly after Trump was indicted in Georgia over his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

That charge was the fourth against the former president. In addition to the Georgia and federal cases alleging attempts to overturn the election, he also faces federal charges for handling confidential government documents after he left the White House, and New York State charges for his payments to a porn actor during the 2016 White House campaign. an attempt to hide their affair.

The election began a day after the Republican Party’s first presidential primary debate, which Trump skipped.

The results of the survey confirm the declining popularity of DeSantis, who shares many of the same beliefs as Trump, but without his legal and temperamental baggage. He has drawn praise from many on the right for his stance against lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic and for his outspoken advocacy for the conservative side in the country’s culture wars.

In February, with many Republicans still focused on the Trump-backed candidates losing in last year’s midterm elections, DeSantis had the support of 37% of likely California Republican voters, while Trump was backed by

29

%, according to a poll by the Berkeley Institute. three months later,

according to a study by Berkeley

the former president was reinstated, with the support of

44

% of states likely to be Republican voters, with DeSantis trailing

26

%.

Former United Nations Ambassador and Governor of South Carolina. Nikki Haley’s performance in the first Republican debate appears to have boosted her support in the latest poll, though she still remains in the single digits among likely Republican voters in California.

Haley now has the support of

7%

of likely surveyed Republican voters in the states doubled their support in the February poll. Businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, former governor of New Jersey. Chris Christie, former Vice President Mike Pence, South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, and conservative radio host Larry Elder all followed her. About

9%

of Republican poll participants said they supported someone else or were undecided.

Looking ahead to the general election,

51%

of states likely to be polled said they would support Biden, the incumbent president

31%

said they would support Trump. About

13%

said they intended to vote for an unnamed third-party candidate, and

5%

were undecided.

While California’s general election is unlikely to be competitive, voter attitudes toward each candidate’s potential vulnerabilities haven’t provided insight into the general state of the race over the past three decades.

Neither Trump nor Biden received great ratings from voters for their ethical behavior, even though the current president has surpassed the previous one

71

% criticized Trump’s personal ethics, compared to

43

% that made Biden’s mistake.

Nearly half, 47%, of California voters likely to be polled said they would be open to supporting a third-party candidate if the 2024 presidential campaign were a repeat of the Biden-Trump battle of three years ago.

24

% say they would be “very open” to the idea.

While a candidate not affiliated with either of the country’s two major political parties has virtually no chance of winning the White House, DiCamillo says these numbers reflect voter frustration, especially among those less ideologically inclined.

There is dissatisfaction. We’ve seen that in other polls,” he said. They appear to be the most moderate voters, not those in the extremes. Strong liberals and strong conservatives are less open to

[a third-party candidate]It

then the one in the middle.

Survey from the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies

6,030

California Registered Voters Online in English and Spanish, August.

24-29,

including weighed samples of

1,175

likely Republican primary voters and 2,833 likely Democratic primary voters.

Because the survey results are weighted to match census and voter registration benchmarks, margin of error estimates may be inaccurate; However, it is estimated that the results have a margin of error of

2

percentage points in both directions for the full sample,

3

percentage points for Democratic primary voters and

4

percentage points for Republican primary voters.