Harris for governor

Kamala Harris for governor? Poll shows how California voters feel about the idea.

California’s Democratic voters cheer the potential of Harris for governor, but warning signs are lurking.

By Melanie Mason

Political influencers in California are greeting Kamala Harris’ potential bid for governor with a shrug, while registered voters in the state react more passionately — in good and bad ways — to her possible candidacy, according to a first-of-its-kind poll from POLITICO and UC Berkeley’s Citrin Center.

Insiders reported feeling “indifferent” more than any other emotion to a hypothetical Harris run, while registered voters were more likely to characterize their reaction as “joyful,” “outraged” or “hopeless.”

The survey question, while focused only on attitudes about Harris, offers a broader snapshot into the mindset of California voters as the state prepares for its first open contest for the governor’s mansion in eight years — and hints at both upsides and vulnerabilities for the former vice president.

The 2024 Democratic presidential nominee has widely been considered a de facto frontrunner in the contest, given her near-universal name identification and blockbuster fundraising operation.

Harris has not yet said if she’s going to jump into the race to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run due to term limits. She told associates that she has given herself a deadline of late summer to decide as she also ponders mounting a bid for the White House in 2028. But her potential candidacy has loomed large over the contest, with some contenders signaling they would step aside if Harris joins the field.

To gauge the mood of the state’s marquee political contest, POLITICO and the UC Berkeley Citrin Center asked respondents to select from a list of possible emotions they felt about Harris running for governor: “joyful,” “mostly excited,” “indifferent,” “irritated,” “outraged,” “hopeless,” or other. Respondents could select multiple options.

The question was put to two distinct survey groups: California registered voters and a selection of “policy influencers.” To generate the influencer sample, the survey was emailed to a list of people including subscribers to California Playbook, California Climate, and POLITICO Pro in California who work in the state. Respondents in that sample included lawmakers and staffers in the state Legislature and the federal government.

This group of in-the-know politicos was notably blasé about the prospect of a Governor Harris, with 36 percent choosing “indifferent” to describe how they’d feel about her hypothetical bid.

The collective “meh” is not particularly surprising, said Jack Citrin, a longtime political science professor at UC Berkeley, who said the insider cohort is dispositionally more likely to be more jaded about government or politics.

“These people are not given to euphoria,” said Jack Citrin, a longtime professor of political science at UC Berkeley.

But the lack of enthusiasm also harkens to Harris’ past struggles to conquer the state’s political class. Her ability to quickly marshal unanimous support from the state’s party delegates in her warp-speed path to the Democratic nomination last year stood out precisely because it showed a newfound strength among California insiders. Now, the tepid finding from the survey suggests that elite enthusiasm may have been short-lived.

Before her first run for president in 2019, “the buzz on her was better outside of California than it was in California,” said Mike Murphy, a longtime Los Angeles-based Republican strategist who broke with his party over President Donald Trump. “She’s never been that popular in the California political high school.”

The wishy-washy reaction from insiders does not indicate an overt hostility from the influencer class; only 4 percent said they would be outraged by her candidacy, and slightly more respondents — 22 percent — said they would feel mostly excited than the 20 percent who selected “irritated.”

Passions were higher — and more polarized — when it came to the survey of registered voters. Among the state’s Democrats, there was a warm response to a Harris run, with 33 percent saying they felt joyful about her possible candidacy and 41 percent feeling “mostly excited.” The negative emotions hovered in the single digits, while roughly a quarter of Democrats said they were indifferent.

“The registered Democratic voters are very enthusiastic about her,” Citrin said. “The ‘joyful’ number goes up, the ‘excited’ number goes up and the ‘irritated’ and ‘outraged’ numbers go way down.”

That’s a significant leg up in solid blue California, where Democrats have a 20-point registration advantage over Republicans and no-party-preference voters. In a multi-candidate field, those positive feelings could translate into a healthy plurality of votes that could easily catapult her into a top-two finish in next year’s June primary, qualifying her for the general election.

Republicans, unsurprisingly, were less keen on a Harris run; the most popular responses among GOP respondents were “irritated” and “outraged.”

But the sentiments captured in the poll also signal some weakness among groups she would need to keep in her coalition. Independent voters were notably bearish on a Harris candidacy — 26 percent said they felt irritated by the prospect and 21 percent selected “hopeless.”

And while Black voters were the most eager for Harris to run — 35 percent said they felt joyful about the possibility, and 38 percent selected “mostly excited” — other voters of color gave a mixed verdict. Among Asian American voters, for example, 18 percent chose “irritated” to describe their reaction while 19 percent of Latinos said the prospect made them feel hopeless.

“It’s almost a surprising lack of enthusiasm” from Latinos, Citrin said. “But we know from the general election that Latino voters shifted as compared to 2020 or 2016 towards Trump.”

The findings from the POLITICO-UC Berkeley Citrin Center survey will add more fuel to the already-raging debate in state political circles about whether Harris would reshape the contours of the governor’s race.

The early consensus, even among Democratic candidates, was that Harris would be too commanding an opponent to take on. Attorney General Rob Bonta, who opted not to run for the post, told POLITICO that Harris would be a “field-clearing” candidate if she launched a campaign. Some declared candidates — including Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, a close Harris friend — have floated backup plans to supporters about running for a different office if Harris gets in.

But other Democrats have become increasingly vocal about their intentions to stay in the race, regardless if Harris runs or not, and have stepped up their pressure on Harris to make her plans known.

Murphy, who has advised Rick Caruso, the billionaire Los Angeles developer who is also mulling a gubernatorial run, said that this survey on voter sentiment shows that Harris has “a glass jaw.”

“If I were a rival Democrat, I look at those numbers, and I would say she’ll start in front, but she’s vulnerable to a campaign,” he said. “So there’s plenty of time to move.”

Antonio Villaraigosa, the former Los Angeles mayor who has been among the most assertive Democrats goading Harris, said the findings from POLITICO and the UC Berkeley Citrin Center confirm that her initial strength in horse race polls “are just a reflection of her name ID and the fact that she just spent $1.4 billion on a losing presidential campaign.”

“It’s clear that Californians agree we need a proven problem solver and there’s no appetite for a coronation,” Villaraigosa said. “People want a leader willing to take on the tough challenges we face. The issues of the cost of living, housing and homelessness are too important for people to think they can stand on the sidelines and come in late to the game.”

Toni Atkins, the former legislative leader who is a well-known quantity in Sacramento but lags in name ID among California voters, said the poll “reaffirms what we already know — governors are elected, not anointed.”

“A lot can happen between now and Election Day — but one thing that won’t change is California’s next governor must earn every single vote,” Atkins said. “I’ve spent the last 15 months doing just that and meeting with voters of all backgrounds in every corner of the state. They’ve made it clear exactly what they’re looking for: steady, proven leadership and a governor who puts California first. That’s exactly what I’ll deliver.”

The surveys were conducted on the TrueDot.ai platform from April 1 to 14 among 1,025 California registered voters and 718 influencers.

Verasight provided the registered voter sample, which included randomly sampled voters from the California voter file. The modeled error estimate for the voter survey is plus or minus five percentage points.