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SACROMENTO – Beyond 2-1, California registered voters believe Gov. Gavin Newsom is focusing on boosting the president’s outlook rather than fixing his own state issues, according to a new poll.
A survey by the UC Berkeley government lab co-hosted by The Times found that 54% of voters are paying more attention to what Newsom could benefit as a future White House candidate.
“People see him as extremely ambitious,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll, of Newsom.
The governor has repeatedly said he has not considered running for president despite speculation about his political future.
He also agreed to journalist Mark Halperin’s claim in a recent interview.
“I might be,” Newsom said. “I don’t know, but I have to burn that reason, and I need to have a compelling vision that distinguishes myself from others.
The poll, conducted in late April, comes after the governor struggled for months to find a political path as a leader in California’s Democratic base in the country that elected Donald Trump in November. With each issue, Newsom switched between accepting the brand as a fighter for his party and coming back more cautiously from the role of Trump enemy.
Newsom called a special session shortly after the presidential election, funding the court’s fight against Trump’s policies, and wore boxing gloves last month when he led a lawsuit seeking judges to overthrow the president’s tariffs. At the same time, he tried to defeat partisan rhetoric after the fatal Southern California wildfires in January and work with the president in disaster recovery.
The governor has been the target of conservative criticism of his liberal policies, including providing undocumented immigrant state-sponsored healthcare that has received complicated responses from voters, according to polls.
He was also deprived of the heat from Progressive to express his moderate views amid discussions with controversial Republicans who appeared on his national podcast, including when trans athletes said it was unfair to compete in women’s sports. Newsom was broken by Democratic leaders last week in Congress.
The Californians are evenly divided into his performance as governor, with 46% approving the work he was doing, and the same percentage says they have disapproved. DiCamilo said these numbers are consistent in the newspapers in the Berkeley IGS vote from around October 2023.
The governor’s approval rating this time was 15 points lower than former governor Jerry Brown in a 2017 Berkeley IGS poll conducted at a similar time in his second term, DiCamilo said.
“It’s a much more partisan view of newspapers than some of his predecessors had, and I think a lot of that has solely on the background of where we are in politics today,” DiCamilo said. “It’s a very, very, very, bipartisan view of all politics.”
Partisanship has reappeared when asked how voters feel about the changes in federal policies caused by the Trump administration. Democrats are more likely to predict bad outcomes than Republicans.
Almost two-thirds of voters predicted the negative impact of Trump’s proposed tariffs on business and agriculture in California, with over half saying the same about the fate of the state’s MEDI-CAL insurance program, efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the undocumented immigrant population, K-12 public schools and the public higher education system.
When asked about his ability to effectively pay attention to California’s interests when dealing with the Trump administration, voters were fairly evenly divided. In the poll, 48% expressed their trust in the governor, and 45% said they were not confident.
The vote also looked into voters’ views on Newsom’s signature healthcare policy to expand eligibility for state-sponsored healthcare to all undocumented immigrants who qualify based on income. Over the past few years, California has gradually opened programs for undocumented immigrants of various age groups.
The poll found extensive support for providing MEDI-CAL coverage to children under the age of 18. It provided medical care to adults over the age of 50, with 53% approved and 40% opposed. Supportive care for adults aged 18-49 is low, with 49% approved and 43% opposed.
The state’s costs to provide compensation to immigrants are billions more than previously estimated. Newsom has pledged to continue providing care for this year, ending in June, but may propose cutting the program in mid-May when it announces its updated budget plan for next year.
Some of the more traditional routes to reduce Medi-Cal include reducing eligibility or fees, establishing registration caps, and adding Co-Pay, but there are other options. The governor has not said he intends to withdraw care from the entire age group.
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