Los Angeles DA Race Coalescing?

In the race for Los Angeles District Attorney, the polling so far has been pretty consistent.

In previous polls, 15% said they will vote in the March primary for current Disaster Attorney George Gascon, another 20% or so are split amongst the 11 eleven challengers, and two thirds don’t know yet.

Two new polls show certain similarities to the pattern but they also indicate a few of the challengers may be separating themselves from the pack.

In a poll done by Impact Research, Gascon receives more support than typical, standing at 21%. But the poll also shows, for the first time, three challengers getting double-digit support in the March vote (the top two finishers in March face off head-to-head in November.)

Judge Debra Archuleta leads the challengers with 12%, followed by former federal attorney Nathan Hochman at 11%, and Deputy District Attorney Eric Siddall at 10%. Deputy District Attorney Maria Ramirez netted 7% while Jeff Chemerinsky, son of noted leftist layer Erwin Chemerinsky, pulls 5%.

This poll has only one-third of voters as being undecided.

There are a few points that should be noted about this poll. First, as there is no “other” candidate number and the above numbers do total 100%, it appears that it may not have mentioned every challenger by name and could have left off the other six: David Milton, Craig Mitchell. Jon Hatami, Lloyd Masson, Daniel Kapelovitz, and John McKinney. Why they left off three viable candidates who have ranked in previous polls – McKinney, Mitchell, and Hatami – is not only unknown but a bit problematic.

Second, the polling universe was 400 LA County residents and had an error margin of 4.9%.

Third, Impact Research is an avowedly “progressive” firm that, for example, works with the Joe Biden and the California Teachers Association.

That should be taken into consideration, especially as the poll asked the questions again after voters “learn more about each candidate.”  In other words, the pollster tells the person being questioned about the candidates, a practice that is clearly fraught with ambiguity: Did you know Candidate X gave a million dollars to charity last year? Did you know Candidate Y has a picture of Hitler on his desk?

The “after learning” numbers in the poll are different.  Gascon drops to 20%, Archuleta goes to 10%, as does Hochman, and Siddall stays at 10%.

But Ramirez and Chemerinsky jump: Ramirez doubles her support to 14% and Chemerinsky more than doubles his support to 11%, essentially expanding the log jam at second place.  About one-quarter remain undecided.

Separately, the poll does show Gascon as being deeply unpopular, with a 32% unfavorable/favorable gap, despite – or because of – having a name recognition factor of 76%.

A second poll of black voters done for KBLA – https://kbla1580.com/ – which has, obviously, an overwhelmingly black audience and bills itself as “unapologetically progressive” also points to Gascon’s inherent weaknesses.

“Just over one-in-five Black voters (21%) support incumbent DA George Gascón—however, a strong plurality disapprove of his performance as DA and nearly half are undecided in the race,” the poll states.

His unfavorability gap was smaller among black voters, but still significant at 15% (46% unfavorable to 31% favorable.)

Archuleta, Hochman, McKinney, and Chemerinsky have very slight positive numbers, but all of the challengers have “never heard of/can’t rate” numbers of about 80%.

As to the March primary, Gascon gets 21% again and again Archuleta comes in second, this time with 6%. Hatami pulls 4%, McKinney, Hochman, Mitchell, and Chemerinsky pull 2% each and Siddall, Ramirez, and Milton each get 1%.  Nearly half of black voters remain undecided.

One note on the Gascon number: considering the demographic and ideological tilt of the radio station, it should be higher.

The KBLA poll, which can be found in its entirety here, like the Impact poll, then told respondents a bit about each candidate and asked the “who would you vote for?” question again.

To its absolute credit, the KBLA poll contains the information shared about each candidate and can be seen by clicking on the link and going to page 26 of the poll.

The “post-education” numbers shift rather dramatically for one candidate: John McKinney, one of only two African-Americans in the race.

Gascon actually goes up a bit to 24% but McKinney rockets ten points into second with 12%, possibly due to the mention of successful prosecution of the murderer of rapper/community supporter Nipsey Hussle.

Archuleta, Siddall, and Chemerinsky each got 4% and the other candidates aggregated 12%, but still one-third remain undecided.

The poll universe was 500 black likely March voters and has an error margin of 4.4%.

Mail in ballots have already been mailed out and the vote is March 5.