Race profile

California

Governor race — CA

The question

California: a safe seat for the Democrats?

Current forecast

Democrat

Safe

Probability
100%
Mean margin (pts)
22.7
P(close race)
0%

Projected vote share

Projection by party

  • Democrat 61.1%

    Xavier Becerra

  • Republican 38.5%

    Steve Hilton

Watch list

The tightest races

Smallest projected margin. Open one for the numbers.

  1. OhioDemocrat56 %3.2 pt margin
  2. FloridaRepublican55 %3.2 pt margin
  3. NevadaDemocrat61 %3.5 pt margin

In context

How this race stacks up

Democrat Republican Other
HereCalifornia 61.1%38.5%0.4%
National averageUnited States 49.1% +12.0 48.2% −9.7 2.7% −2.3

Nationwide averages computed across the 36 state races (unweighted mean).

Projection track

How the projection has moved

District polls

Polls in this district

6 polls

Pollster Field dates Sample Pop. Topline Source
Public Policy Institute Of California 4–Sep 10 1,098 LV
Democrat 60 Republican 38
link
University Of California Berkeley Institute Of Governmental Studies Los Angeles Times 3–Aug 9 2,310 LV
Democrat 55 Republican 37
link
Public Policy Institute Of California Jun 29 – Jul 6 1,003 LV
Democrat 61 Republican 36
link
Kreate Strategies 13–Jun 17 900 RV
Democrat 58 Republican 33
link
University Of Southern California/California State University Long Beach Center For Urban Politics And Policy/Cal Poly Pomona 23–May 26 735 LV
Democrat 58 Republican 35
link
University Of California Berkeley Institute Of Governmental Studies Los Angeles Times 19–May 24 8,578 RV
Democrat 52 Republican 31
link

District-level polls, topline only. Vote-Scope reports each published poll as the pollster released it; figures are not the Vote-Scope projection.

Editorial read

California elected a governor with the Democrats at its previous election, by 18 points. The Vote-Scope model projects the Democrats ahead at 61% vote share, against 38% for the Republicans, and the probability of a close race is negligible.

Sitting governor

Gavin Newsom

Party Democrat

Who's running

The candidates

Declared and on-ballot candidates for the upcoming election.

  • Democrat Open seat

    Xavier Becerra

  • Republican Open seat

    Steve Hilton

Previous election · 2022

Won by
Democrat
Margin
18.4 pts
Margin shift vs current projection
+4.3 pts

Elsewhere on the map

Other races to watch

Tone only — open a race to see the numbers.

Last model run
Cycle
us_governor_2026