Californians favor former Vice President Kamala Harris over a hypothetical unnamed Republican for governor of the Golden State, according to a new poll released Wednesday from the University of California, Irvine.
Although Harris has not officially announced her next move since losing her bid for the White House to President Donald Trump, 41% of those surveyed support the former vice president compared with 29% who would choose the Republican candidate.
Enthusiasm for the 2026 governor's race is lukewarm at best, with an additional 16% saying they don't know and 14% saying they don't plan on voting.
While Harris may be the current favorite, some Democrat donors seemed to have moved on. "There was more enthusiasm at first," Mather Martin, a San Francisco-based fundraiser who has worked for past Harris campaigns told Politico. "I think it waned a bit."
Another large Democrat donor was more direct with the outlet. "Kamala just reminds you we are in this complete s**t storm. With Biden, we got bamboozled — I think she did the best she could in that situation, but obviously she knew about the cognitive decline too," the donor said. "I've written so many checks because I knew the Trump administration would be horrible, but we're living in a nightmare because of the Democrats. I'm furious at them, truly."
The UC Irvine School of Social Ecology conducted two polls, the first from May 27-June 2 and the second from May 29-June 4. The first, which surveyed 2,143 adults in the state, had a +/- 2.9% margin of error. For the second, which surveyed 2,000 adults, it had a +/- 3.6% point margin of error.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.