Sunday, June 1, 2014

CA-Gov: Kashkari has strong lead in LAT poll but...

A new USC-LA Times poll has Republican gubernatorial candidate Neel Kashkari firmly in 2nd place, leading fellow Republican Tim Donnelly 18%-13%. If this happens it'd represent a remarkable comeback for Kashkari, who was behind 17%-2% and 18%-4% in polls taken in April. The poll was taken by two respected Republican and Democratic firms, has a 44% turnout, and a 43%D/39%R/18%O party breakdown. While that turnout may be a little high, it's not too high, as the SurveyUSA poll was. The undecided, 18%, is high at this point and may include non-voters. That party breakdown is a little too Republican, but not enough to make any difference.

My big problem with this poll, and with SurveyUSA before it, is that it only includes three candidates. The Clear Path Strategies poll showed the other three Republicans taking 17% of the 39% Republican vote. When you don't include them you don't get the full idea of who people will choose as an alternative to Tim Donnelly. "Someone else" isn't a good alternative and scores very low here.

If there were only three candidates, Kashkari could be confident. But there aren't and it's possible that he's actually trailing Donnelly. So don't take this as a clear indicator of how Kashkari is doing.

No comments:

Post a Comment