SACRAMENTO, California — Katie Porter was the biggest beneficiary of Kamala Harris passing on a run for California governor, according to a new poll from POLITICO and its partners, with the former representative now holding a commanding lead in the race.
Thirty percent of registered voters who said they’d vote for Harris if she ran for governor now plan to support Porter, the latest POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab survey found. Sixteen percent of Harris supporters said former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was their second choice, while 11 percent said their new favored candidate was former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
Porter’s “gains from Harris are probably a combination of just being better known and having a clear ideological stamp,” said Jack Citrin, a political science professor at UC Berkeley and partner on the poll. “She has a particular progressive stamp — more than the other two guys — and I think that’s part of her appeal.”
Porter led in a head-to-head poll against her competitors in the Harris-less field, netting 21 percent of voters. Becerra and Villaraigosa tied as the next leading Democrats, pulling 9 percent support each. The results quantify Porter’s edge in the sprawling Democratic field, which she buttressed in the first half of the year with field-best fundraising numbers.
She attracted the most support from white and Asian voters, and from respondents who ranked housing as their top policy concern. Porter likely benefited from running for Senate last year against Adam Schiff, drawing news coverage and viewers of campaign ads when the governor’s race was barely underway, Citrin said. That’s especially important since the possibility of a Harris campaign dominated the governor’s race for months.
“Visibility is a big factor in a low-information environment,” Citrin said.
The poll, conducted before Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis dropped out and moved to the state treasurer’s race, signaled weakness in her support. Seven percent of voters backed Kounalakis’ gubernatorial bid, and she only attracted 8 percent of would-be Harris voters despite the two sharing Bay Area roots and allies.
Trailing Kounalakis was former state Controller Betty Yee, at 6 percent. Billionaire developer Rick Caruso, who has considered running for governor or Los Angeles mayor, also sat at 6 percent, while former state legislative leader Toni Atkins, state Superintendent Tony Thurmond and timeshare executive Stephen J. Cloobeck polled in the low single digits.
On the Republican side, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco outpaced former Fox News host Steve Hilton, 15 percent to 10 percent. Bianco also edged Hilton among registered Republicans, 37 percent to 26 percent.
The poll identified the candidates by their best-known titles, many of which won’t appear alongside their name on the 2026 ballot.
The survey also looked at the opinion of policy influencers, including a group of roughly 300 Democratic POLITICO Pro subscribers who are deeply versed in the state’s political landscape. Porter also performed best among that group. Atkins, a well-respected leader in Sacramento, fared better among influencers than with registered voters. Fifteen percent of influencers back her, compared to just 4 percent of voters.
“That might be because of her Sacramento presence,” said Citrin. “Maybe they know more about her. I would say the ordinary voter could not tell you who she is.”
Villaraigosa and Porter performed the best with Hispanic voters, while Hilton, the former Fox host, did the second-best of any candidate with Boomers.
The survey consists of two separate opinion studies of the California electorate and policy influencers in the state, fielded by TrueDot, the artificial intelligence-accelerated research platform, in collaboration with the Citrin Center and Possibility Lab at UC Berkeley and POLITICO. The public opinion study, made possible in part with support from the California Constitution Center, was conducted in the field between July 28 and Aug. 12.
Voters who responded that they would vote for Harris after she opted not to run on July 30 were asked for their second choice. Their second picks were included in the remaining candidates’ head-to-head support numbers.
The sample of 875 total registered voters, including 367 registered Democrats, was selected at random by Verasight, with interviews conducted in English and Spanish, and includes an oversample of Hispanic voters. The modeled error estimate for the full sample is plus/minus 2.6 percent.
The policy influencer study was conducted from July 30 to Aug. 11, among 299 subscribers to POLITICO Pro, and the modeled error estimate is +/- 3.7 percent.
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