A new California poll finds most voters believe the state is heading the wrong way and many have considered leaving, yet Democrat Xavier Becerra still holds a large lead over Republican Steve Hilton.
Democrat Xavier Becerra holds a 15.7-point advantage over Republican Steve Hilton in the race to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to a California Post poll conducted by McLaughlin & Associates. Among 800 voters surveyed between Oct. 17 and 20, Becerra led 55% to 39.3%, with 4.9% undecided. Election Day is November 3.
The same survey found 56.2% of California voters believe the state is heading in the wrong direction, while only 30.1% say it is on the right track. Forty-four percent said they have seriously considered leaving California within the last four years. The numbers show deep frustration. The horse race does not.
That gap is the story. Voters are unhappy with results under long Democratic control, yet they still break heavily for the Democrat on the ballot.
Pollster John McLaughlin, whose firm has surveyed California voters since the Reagan era, put the dynamic in plain terms.
McLaughlin said:
"Voters are extremely partisan, and prefer one of their own to a Republican."
He added:
"They will vote for Becerra and hope for the best."
Becerra, a former California attorney general and former Biden Cabinet health secretary, dominates among Democrats 89% to 6%. He leads independents only narrowly, 46% to 44%. Hilton takes 90% of Republicans. The survey sample itself was 47% Democratic, 29% Republican, and 24% independent, third-party, or decline-to-state.
Favorability scores barely separate the two men. Becerra sits at 42% favorable and 42% unfavorable. Hilton is at 39% favorable and 42% unfavorable. Political analyst Dan Schnur, who teaches at USC, UC Berkeley, and Pepperdine, said the near-parity points to party label more than candidate quality.
Schnur said:
"There’s no significant difference in the way the candidates are regarded by the voters."
He continued that it is logical to assume Becerra’s lead “is based solely on party identification and nothing else at all.” Most voters, Schnur argued, know little about Becerra beyond the fact that he is not a Republican, and in a deep-blue state, that can be enough to win.
McLaughlin flagged the core math problem for the Republican.
He said:
"The worst news in the poll is that Hilton receives only 6% of the Democrats."
Unless Hilton creates “enough rejection of Becerra by Democrats,” McLaughlin said, “the math to win isn’t there.” The pollster estimated Hilton would need at least 55% of independents and roughly a quarter of Democratic voters to close the gap. He is nowhere near that cross-over now.
Hilton, a former Fox News host and onetime adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron, consolidates his own base. He does not peel off the other side. That pattern has defined California politics for years under one-party Democratic control since 2011, and it shows again here even as voters voice discontent with the state’s direction. Related fights over California policy have kept the same partisan lines intact, including when Newsom vetoed a California extradition shield in a high-profile state dispute.
Schnur described the broader habit this way:
"In most places, angry voters turn to the alternative. Here in California, voters simply don’t see an alternative, so they grudgingly stick with what they’ve got."
That is accountability deferred. Dissatisfaction without a change in voting behavior leaves the same governing coalition in place.
Economic pressure sits at the center of the unease. Nearly four in five voters, 79.6%, named at least one economic issue as one of their top two priorities for the next governor. Cost of living and inflation led at 44.9%. Government budgets, taxes, and spending followed at 24.1%. Housing costs came in at 21.7%.
McLaughlin tied the leave-the-state numbers directly to that squeeze.
He said the share considering an exit “is extremely high and is clearly tied to affordability issue.” He also noted a longer trend:
"We never saw more people wanting to leave California than come to California."
The exit impulse is not evenly spread. Fifty-six percent of independents said they have seriously considered moving out. Among Democrats the figure drops to 21%. Hispanic voters came in at 47%. Among respondents who completed the survey in Spanish, 57% said they had considered leaving.
Only 52% of Democrats and 54% of Becerra supporters say the state is headed in the right direction. Even within the coalition that still plans to back the Democrat, confidence in the state’s path is far from universal. National Democrats have looked to governors as the party’s congressional standing has suffered, a pattern covered when Democrats eyed governors for 2028 amid cratering approval on Capitol Hill. California’s numbers show why a blue stronghold can still feel politically locked even when residents sound exhausted.
A separate California Post poll of Los Angeles voters found an even sharper wrong-track reading. Fully 66.2% said the city is headed in the wrong direction; only 16.4% said right track. Mayor Karen Bass posted a 71.7% disapproval rating and trailed City Councilwoman Nithya Raman by eight points in that mayoral survey.
Homelessness ranked among the top two concerns for 47.3% of LA voters, compared with 16.1% statewide. About 42% of LA voters said they had seriously considered moving out of state, close to the 44% statewide figure. City-level frustration runs hot. The partisan structure of California elections still cushions Democratic candidates from the full political cost.
Party brand ratings help explain the cushion. Fifty-nine percent of voters view the Republican Party unfavorably, including 50% who view it very unfavorably. The Democratic Party sits at 49% favorable and 47.9% unfavorable, underwater, but nowhere near the GOP’s depth of rejection. Hilton can win Republicans in a landslide and still lose the state if Democratic loyalty and independent lean hold.
McLaughlin described Becerra as having put distance between himself and Newsom. Whether that separation changes governing outcomes is a separate question from the horse race. Schnur warned that winning on party ID alone does not automatically produce a governing coalition that can fix the problems voters name. California’s recent legislative fights, including when Newsom signed a privacy bill critics tied to a First Amendment showdown, show how quickly Sacramento policy battles become national flashpoints without resolving kitchen-table costs.
The poll’s clearest finding is not mystery. It is mismatch. A majority says the state is on the wrong track. A large minority has thought hard about leaving. Economic issues dominate the priority list. Candidate favorability is essentially tied. And the Democrat still leads by double digits because California voters, as measured here, treat party as the decisive cue.
McLaughlin’s warning to Hilton was operational: without meaningful Democratic defection, the arithmetic fails. Schnur’s warning to the state was broader: grudging continuity is not the same as confidence, and name recognition as “not the Republican” is a thin basis for governing a state residents describe as too expensive to endure. Occasional partisan crossovers make news elsewhere, as when Fetterman appeared at a GOP convention while still claiming the Democratic label, but this survey shows no comparable break in California’s governor’s race.
Becerra’s 55%, 39.3% edge, the 56.2% wrong-track reading, the 44% leave consideration figure, and the near-identical favorability scores can sit in the same dataset only if partisanship overpowers performance review at the ballot box. That is what the McLaughlin numbers show with two weeks of field work and a clear November 3 election date ahead.
When voters say the state is failing and still rehire the same party, they should not act surprised when the results stay the same.
