New Poll Finds Trump Leads Haley By Massive 64%-17% Margin in California Republican Primary

According to a new Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) Poll released on Thursday, former President Donald Trump has a massive lead over former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, with California’s massive number of delegates likely to go to Trump on Super Tuesday.

The poll found that a massive 64% of California Republicans would back Trump in the primary, with only 17% backing Haley; 14% currently have voters wanting other candidates despite Haley and Trump being the last two candidates left in the race. A further 4% said that they wouldn’t vote in the primary with 1% currently undecided.

“Trump’s support is at 75 percent among conservatives and is similar among men (65%) and women (62%),” the PPIC said in their breakdown. “Support for Trump is at 48 percent among college graduates and is at 67 percent among those 45 and older. When asked how they would vote when the choice is between the two remaining Republican presidential candidates, 69 percent say they would vote for Trump and 29 percent would vote for Haley, while 2 percent would not vote in the Republican primary.”

The PPIC poll is on par with the current 538 aggregate projection on the California Primary, which only factors in Trump and Haley as candidates. According to that projection, Trump is currently estimated to get 73% of the vote and Haley around 19%. Both the PPIC poll and the 538 California projections show Trump coming in slightly below the national Republican primary voter average of just under 77% in favor of Trump and 15.6% in favor of Haley.

Trump trumps Haley

The PPIC poll also showed that President Joe Biden is also currently leading Trump in the November presidential election in California. Biden is currently polling at 55% according to the poll, with Trump at 32%, other candidates at 10%, and 3% remaining undecided. When compared to the final 2020 percentages in California, Biden is currently polling well below his final 63.4% showing from the last election, with Trump only down roughly 2% from 34.3% in 2020. However, Trump is also currently up from his 2016 showing in California, where he received just above 31% of the votes in the state. With a large percentage of voters still open and Biden’s 39% approval rating actually being several points behind where Trump’s approval rating was during the same time in his presidency in 2020, Trump could get a higher percentage of Californian voters than he did in 2020.

“When it comes to California, the consensus is that Trump will win the GOP primary hands down, but will lose to Biden. Shocker, right?,” said Michael Springer, an elections analyst in Washington who focuses on presidential primaries. “But this poll was pretty interesting. For Trump, even with the multiple lawsuits and everything going on with him right now, he is still polling just about as well as he did in 2020 in California. It’s still not enough to send Democrats there into any sort of panic, but if Trump polls above his 2020 total and does better against Biden in blue California than he did 4 years ago, that is going to speak volumes of how how people are perceiving Biden.”

“With it coming to Haley, she said she would stick around until Super Tuesday, but she hasn’t done much in California. She’s been to LA and other cities trying to rally voters, but they’re for Trump right now. The thing her campaign didn’t realize is just how blue collar Los Angeles and other urban parts of the state really are. That’s Trump’s bread and butter, even in California. She thought she could make gains there, but he is just too popular there. He has a big donor base in California, much bigger than people realize. If Haley was even remotely close, Trump would have ads go out and would have flown out there for more rallies. This poll shows that California Republican are reacting to Haley just like the rest of the nation. And after next Tuesday, California Republicans will shift into fundraising and support mode for Trump, since their support goes a long way to flipping states elsewhere. Haley seems to be just figuring that out.”

The California primary election is due to take place on Tuesday, March 5th.