Presidential primary poll

Newsom opens commanding lead over Harris in 2028 California primary poll

The California governor was leading the former vice president by 14 percentage points in their home state, according to a poll by POLITICO and its partners.

By Blake Jones

Gavin Newsom is trouncing Kamala Harris in their home state in a new presidential primary poll by POLITICO and its partners.

The California governor leads Harris, the former vice president, 28 percent to 14 percent among voters leaning toward voting in California’s Democratic presidential primary, the UC Berkeley Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research-POLITICO poll found. Newsom has also opened a commanding lead over other potential candidates, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, at 12 percent and 11 percent, respectively.

“All Democrats want to beat Trump, and Newsom has pushed himself to be the most visible opponent among the potential Democratic candidates,” said Jack Citrin, a University of California Berkeley political science professor and co-director of the poll. “Harris, in some ways, is old news.”

Newsom, a leading early contender nationally for the Democratic nomination, has been positioning himself for a likely run, raising his profile by lacing into President Donald Trump at international events and traveling to key early primary states to promote his new memoir.

Meanwhile, just 41 percent of California registered voters said they would be excited if Harris ran again, a similar share to last summer. That’s further evidence of Democrats looking past Harris — who recently said she “might” run — after her two failed presidential bids. And it isn’t just voters who are wary of a Harris campaign. She struggles even more in a concurrent survey of POLITICO’s audience of key political and policy influencers in the state, including political staffers, lobbyists, policy advisers and others — the kind of people most familiar with the former state attorney general and U.S. senator.

Harris, whose rise in politics had mirrored Newsom’s for decades back to their early days in San Francisco, until she was chosen as vice president, draws support from just 2 percent of political and policy influencers likely to vote in the Democratic primary, compared to 17 percent who back Newsom, according to the survey.

The results of the voter survey suggest a widening advantage for Newsom rather than a one-off. Newsom led Harris among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents by a narrower margin, 25 percent to 19 percent among the state’s registered Democratic voters and Democratic-leaning independents, in a Citrin-POLITICO poll conducted last year.

It has helped, Citrin said, that Newsom’s 2028 plans appear so obvious, prompting voters to seriously consider him as an option.

“Anyone with an IQ of over five knows that Newsom is running for president,” Citrin said. “Harris is still in this kind of Hamlet-like stage. Maybe she’s trying to make up her mind. Maybe she doesn’t know.”

While not an early voting state, California’s massive haul of delegates could be a major advantage for Newsom in 2028.

It is also a state rich with GOP delegates, despite the overwhelming Democratic majorities here. Among California voters leaning toward the Republican primary, Vice President JD Vance holds a solid lead, running ahead of Secretary of State Marco Rubio 43 percent to 15 percent.

Rubio, however, is more popular with Republican-leaning policy and political influencers, leading Vance 38 percent to 22 percent.

These data come from parallel surveys of California voters and policy influencers, fielded by TrueDot, the AI-accelerated research platform, in collaboration with the Citrin Center at UC Berkeley and POLITICO. Interviews for the voter survey were conducted online in English and Spanish between Feb. 25 and March 3, 2026, among a sample of 1,004 registered voters selected at random by Verasight. Voter data were weighted using the Current Population Survey and data from the California Report of Registration.

From Feb. 24 to March 3, 2026, a parallel study was conducted in partnership with POLITICO among its audience of key political and policy influencers in California. The audience was defined based on job title and organizational affiliation and included state and local government employees, political staffers, lobbyists, policy advisers, consultants, business decision-makers and subject matter experts.

The margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 percent for the voter survey and plus or minus 3.7 percent for the influencers.