Democrats are seemingly on their way to yet another round of victories in California’s elections, and yet polls continue to show that California voters disapprove of the state’s direction. At what point does the electoral dam finally break?
A poll by David Wolfson, commissioned by GOP gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton, shows Hilton trailing Democratic candidate, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, by less than 6 points. This comes with the obvious caveats: Nearly three-fourths of the 14% of voters who are undecided would choose Becerra if push came to shove, and the poll is an outlier compared to the polling average, which has Becerra consistently leading by double digits.
BECERRA’S LAZY CAMPAIGN PROVES HIS CONTEMPT FOR CALIFORNIA VOTERS
But one data point in the poll is notable in that it is a regular polling result. The poll found that nearly 59% of Californians say the state is headed in the wrong direction, compared to just 28% who think it is going in the right direction. A poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found Becerra with a comfortable lead, but also found that 54% of Californians think the state is headed in the wrong direction, and 71% expect things to get economically worse for the state in the coming years.
This is the story of the Golden State in election cycle after election cycle. In 2024, a poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, showed 57% of Californians thought the state was headed in the wrong direction, with Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D-CA) approval underwater at 46% to 47%. In 2022, the same polling outfit had “wrong direction” leading on the same question at 54% to 36%. (Newsom’s approval was 48% to 47%).
Every election cycle, Californians think their state is headed in the wrong direction, thanks to exorbitantly high costs (which are higher than any other state) and ever-increasing taxes that never seem to fund the ever-growing budget. And yet, those voters still can’t bring themselves to turn against the Democratic Party that has a monopoly on the state in favor.
AS USUAL, CALIFORNIA RANKS AMONG THE WORST-RUN STATES IN THE COUNTRY
That doesn’t mean change can’t happen, and can’t happen suddenly. The margin of victory for Ron DeSantis in Florida’s gubernatorial races jumped from 0.4 points in 2018 to more than 19 points in 2022. In comparison, Newsom’s 2022 victory against a little-known GOP state senator was narrower in 2022 than DeSantis’s, meaning that a sudden shift in the opposite direction would result in a GOP win.
That win likely won’t happen this November, based on the polling, but California voters are stewing on years of dissatisfaction with how their state has been governed by Democrats. At some point, you expect that the dam will break. The only question for California voters is when that will be.