Gascon Polling Disaster Finds Only 14% Plan to Vote for Him in March

One in seven – that’s how many Los Angeles County residents plan to vote to re-elect George Gascon in the March District Attorney’s race primary.

For an incumbent to poll at 14% against a field of nine far lesser known, candidates can be summed up in one word: disastrous.

The poll of 600 likely voters by RG Strategies for the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs (ALADS) also shows Gascon has only an overall favorability rate of 25% against an unfavorable rate of 52%, a negative gap of 27%.

For comparison, Joe Biden has a Real Clear Politics polling average negative favorability gap of 16%, with Donald Trump and Kamala Harris coming in with 17% gaps.

ALADS President Richard Pippin said, “George Gascón’s policies have not helped make Los Angeles County safer. This poll shows that voters agree and are looking for a new District Attorney in the next election.”

As to the candidates seeking to replace Gascon, 52% of respondents said they were undecided as to who they would pick, a not unsurprising result considering the early stage of the race.

The nine candidates pulled between 2 and 7% voting day support and had favorability ratings between 12 and 17% – unsurprising, again, as they are still all rather unknown.

Gascon cannot claim that as an excuse.

The poll shows the individual candidates as follows: Maria Ramirez polls at 7%, Debra Archuleta at 6%, Jon Hatami at 5%, Nathan Hochman at 4%, Jeff Chemerinsky and Eric Siddall at 3%, and Craig Mitchell, John McKinney, and David Milton at 2% each.  (For more detailed information on each candidates, see here)

In other words, there is no real clear leader yet amongst the possible Gascon replacements.

One aspect of the poll that should make Gascon even more worried – if that’s possible – is the softness of his support.  Of the 14% who said they plan to vote for him, more than half – or 8% – are open to changing their mind.

On a demographic level, the news is equally grim for Gascon. Only “Gen Z” – or 18 to 26 year olds – gave Gascon a favorability rating of 25%.  By race, age, or sex, no other group cracked 17%.

Note to George – counting on 21 year olds to show in droves to vote for you in a March down-ballot primary vote is not a sound campaign strategy.

The numbers are grisly to the point that Gascon is far from being assured of getting out of that primary.  Considering he is a known factor and his favorability ratings are so bad and his current support is squishy, he will almost certainly not pick up a great deal of the undecided vote. In other words, at this point every candidate is withing striking distance of finishing in the top two of the primary and making it to the one-on-one runoff in November.  And no candidate has a prayer to get to 50%, meaning that while it is not known who will be in the run-off vote, this poll shows there will be one.

And even if his Democratic Socialist of America trust fund minions somehow drag him through the primary, this poll is clear – any of the other candidates can – and should – and hopefully will –  beat him in November.

You can download the poll here.