California Gov. Kamala Harris? New poll finds she’d have a clear advantage

If Vice President Kamala Harris were to run for governor in California in 2026, she would have a major advantage over the crowded field of candidates vying to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, new polling shows.

The latest poll from the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by The Times, found that if Harris enters California’s crowded 2026 gubernatorial race, nearly half of voters would be very or somewhat likely to support her.

Harris would have stronger support overall from Democrats, who have a nearly 2-1 voter registration advantage over Republicans. About 72% of Democrats said they would be very likely or somewhat likely to consider Harris for governor, compared with 8% of Republicans and 38% of voters with no party preference.

“Nearly all voters in this state have an opinion of her, and that’s really the big advantage that she brings to an early poll,” said Mark DiCamillo, the director of the Berkeley IGS Poll. “None of the other candidates are as well known to the voting public.”

Still, the poll suggests that Californians could be less supportive of Harris running for governor compared with her run for president this year. Forty-six percent of likely voters were somewhat (13%) or very (33%) likely to support her for governor in 2026, the poll found. As of Tuesday, Harris had won 59% of the presidential race votes counted in California.

The poll is the first to gauge how California feels about Harris running for governor. Harris has not said publicly what she plans to do after President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20, and a Harris representative did not respond to a request for comment.

Harris has a home in Brentwood and enjoyed a successful career in California politics for nearly two decades as she rose from San Francisco district attorney to California attorney general and then to the U.S. Senate. Several years ago, she opened a campaign account to raise money to run for governor, but public filings show she shut it in 2018.

Although Harris has not signaled that she wants to run for governor, the idea has been floated by some Californians disappointed that she lost the presidential race.

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Harris would join a field of more than a dozen candidates who have either entered the race to succeed Newsom or are weighing whether to launch a campaign. Newsom is serving his second term and cannot run again.

Separate from the poll’s questions about Harris, California voters were asked to choose their first and second favorites from a long list of candidates who have entered the governor’s race and potential candidates.

Voter opinions about Harris cannot be compared with those about the other candidates because voters were not asked to pick between them, DiCamillo said. Including her in a head-to-head matchup with other candidates felt premature, DiCamillo said, because she was still running for president when the poll was conducted.

More than half of registered voters say they don’t have a preference among the candidates. Among those who do, their favorites haven’t yet entered the race.

U.S. Rep. Katie Porter (D-Irvine), who has not said whether she will run, would lead the pack as the first or second choice of 13% of voters, the poll found. Two Republicans said to be weighing campaigns, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and state Sen. Brian Dahle, who ran against Newsom in 2022, were the first or second choice of 12% and 11% of registered voters, respectively.

Porter, who is leaving the House of Representatives in January, has been in the mix of potential gubernatorial candidates since she lost her bid for the U.S. Senate in March. When asked last weekend by Fox 11’s Elex Michaelson whether she will run, she said she is “still thinking.”

Two Democrats who have launched campaigns each have 7% support: Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis and former Los Angeles Mayor Antoino Villaraigosa. So does Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who has not said whether he will run. Republican commentator Steve Hilton, also said to be weighing a bid, would be the first or second choice of 6% of voters.

Some candidates already in the race, including State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, state Sen. Toni Atkins and former state Controller Betty Yee, had support from fewer than 5% of registered voters.

The same was true for several politicians who have not announced campaigns, including state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, who has said he’s “seriously considering” running; developer Rick Caruso, who lost the Los Angeles mayor’s race in 2022; and Republican Lanhee Chen, who lost the election for state controller in 2022.

It’s an “impressive list” of candidates, DiCamillo said, but the large share of California voters with no opinion about any of them (52%) underscores how little most voters know about the race — and what an advantage Harris would have because of her name recognition.

“Most voters in California do not pay attention to what’s going on in state politics,” DiCamillo said. “That’s why you need huge amounts of campaign resources to make yourself known to them.”

The poll found that Porter would be an early leader among the state’s registered Democrats, as well as among Asian American, white and female voters. Having support of women is an advantage, DiCamillo said, because the majority of registered Democrats in California are women.

Latino voters slightly favor two Democrats — Villaraigosa and Becerra — as well as Bianco. That Latinos are favoring both Republicans and Democrats, DiCamillo said, mirrors the rightward shift that he tracked in polling about President-elect Donald Trump and U.S. Senate candidate Steve Garvey, both of whom did “better among Latinos than we have seen historically.”

“The Latino vote now seems more in play than in past elections,” DiCamillo said.

The poll was conducted online in English and Spanish from Oct. 22 to 29 among 4,838 registered voters in California. The margin of error is about 2 percentage points.