New Senate Poll Shows Adam Schiff Increasing Overall Lead

According to a new Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) poll released on Thursday, Congressman Adam Schiff’s (D-CA) lead in the 2024 U.S. Senate race grew back to over 20%, with Congresswoman Katie Porter (D-CA) and former baseball star Steve Garvey (R) being left in a distant second and third place.

In total, the new poll showed that Schiff had 21% of the vote, Porter 16%, Garvey 10%, Congresswoman Barbara Lee with 8%, other candidates scoring a cumulative 27%, and 14% of voters remaining undecided. Additionally, Schiff is now the leading candidate in almost every demographic. The only areas where Schiff is currently not in first is with voters under 45, where Porter leads Schiff 23% to 11%, and with voters in the Orange County/San Diego geographic area, where the OC-based Porter is leading the LA-area based Schiff 22% to 17%.

However, the poll, which was conducted in mid-November, failed to bring many things into account for early December, such as Democratic candidate Lexi Reese dropping out last week, as well as other recent polls from around the same time showing the gap between Schiff and Porter being much closer. An Emerson poll conducted around the same time and released last month found that Schiff only had a narrow 3 point lead, coming in with 16%, and all other candidates being within striking range. This included Porter at 13%, Garvey at 10%, and Lee at 9%. Even more unusual was the Berkeley IGS poll conducted only a few weeks earlier, which showed Porter with a narrow 1% lead with 17% of the vote, followed by Schiff’s 16%, Garvey’s 10%, Lee’s 9%, and Businessman James Bradley (R) reaching a new high of 7%.

While the figures having been bucking wildly, especially with continued high undecided voter percentages, a number of trends can be seen. Amongst the Democrats, both Schiff and Porter continue to gain popularity while Lee continued to slip. Amongst Republicans, Garvey is increasingly becoming the candidate of choice and, although support has slowed, he is still very much in the race.

Schiff-Porter-Garvey-Lee

“A Schiff-Porter one-two finish is increasingly looking likely,” said Stephanie Lewis, a pollster in Southern California, to the Globe on Thursday. “Since January that has been what most people around politics have been saying. Both are popular members of the House and they have the funds, support, and recognition to go far. Lee is proving to be less and less a viable candidate and seems to only be hanging around to swoop in should something go wrong  with the campaign of either of the other two.

“Garvey hasn’t really moved, which is bad, because if he wants to get that second place finish, he needs to start moving up by at least a few percentage points at this time. Now, he didn’t slip, like Lee did. So he has that popularity still. But he needs to make more in-roads now.

“The next poll likely won’t have Schiff this high and will likely have Porter and Garvey come back to being close. PPIC polls, for whatever reason, always have Schiff ahead in polls by at least a few percentage points as compared to the other polls. Considering where the candidates are compared to others, it sounds like it could be a matter  of polling method, like if they rely more on landlines than cell phones or something like that.

“Nonetheless, the likelihood of a Schiff-Porter race is a little higher now. In the next polls, we need to watch if the number of undecided voters change, if Schiff is still above 20%, how close Porter remains to Schiff, and if Garvey’s popularity goes up. There’s only a few months left and, despite this poll, the race remains very close.”

In addition to the Senate candidate poll, the new PPIC poll found that former President Donald Trump currently has an insurmountable lead in the Republican presidential primary with 56% of the entire vote. The next closest candidates, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, only have 13% and 12% support each. When it comes to the presidential race however, President Joe Biden is still leading Trump by a wide margin in California, with Biden getting 54% of the votes and Trump only 30%.

The next poll on the Senate race is due out soon.