A slimmer plurality of California registered voters approve of Gov. Gavin Newsom's job performance than they did just before he fended off a recall election last September, according to a new poll released on Tuesday.
Forty-eight percent of registered voters approved of Newsom's performance in the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, while 47% disapproved. Fifty percent approved last September, and 42% disapproved.
Nearly 62% of California voters opted not to recall Newsom, a Democrat, shortly after the September 2021 poll. Democrats still overwhelmingly outnumber Republicans in the state, and the largest increase in partisan disapproval was among registered Democrats (plus-7).
Dissatisfied Democrats likely won't translate to Newsom losing reelection this November, poll director Mark DiCamillo told KCBS Radio's Jeff Bell and Patti Reising on Tuesday afternoon, given the partisan advantage. But it could affect which issues he chooses to highlight, with registered voters most critical of Newsom's handling of homelessness and public safety.
"I don't think it's something that the governor will think is a threat to his reelection, but it's certainly a set of issues that voters would like addressed," DiCamillo said. "And I think what the poll is showing is they'd like to hear some ideas, both from the governor and any Republicans that are challenging the governor in the upcoming election."
Two-thirds of polled voters said Newsom was doing a poor or very poor job handling homelessness, while 51% said the same of his performance on crime and public safety. DiCamillo called both problems "intractable in many ways."
Census data from last year showed there are nearly three people for every housing unit in California, good for 48th in the U.S. The housing that is available, meanwhile, ranks among the most expensive in the country, and opponents of laws aiming to increase housing fight their local implementation across the state.
Newsom's state budget proposal, released last month, includes $2 billion for mental health housing, services, encampment clean-up and another $2 billion in grants and tax credits to build housing.
"There has been a lot of budgets' money that have been devoted to try to reduce the problem, but as yet, none appear to be working," DiCamillo said. "We'll wait and see. The public is, I think, getting impatient on that issue."
Seventy-eight percent of polled voters thought crime increased in the state, and 65% felt crime had increased in their area following highly publicized reports of retail theft and violent crime in some of California's biggest cities. Although available data showed crime rates increased last year, they returned to pre-pandemic levels, which were among the lowest in decades.
A Public Policy Institute of California report published last month showed property and violent crimes increased in four large California cities in 2021, with homicides up 17% from 2020 in Los Angeles, Oakland, San Diego and San Francisco. Property and violent crime rates reached pre-pandemic levels that, until 2020, were the lowest since data was first recorded in 1960.
Newsom's budget proposal last month included more than $250 million to fight what he in December called "organized retail mobs" committing headline-grabbing robberies across the state. The polled voters indicated they want Newsom to go further, with respondents by a 2-1 margin saying they supported changing a 2014 ballot measure that, among other things, reduced shoplifting of items valued at less than $950 from a felony to a misdemeanor.
DiCamillo cautioned that it's unlikely a desire for change will extend to California's highest office.
"There's not a lot of challenge to the governor within his own party," DiCamillo said of Newsom's potential concerns heading into the June 7 primary. "This is a Democratic state. He'll very likely be the Democratic nominee and running for reelection. So he'll be facing a Republican, and in this state, the odds of a Republican winning statewide, we haven't seen that in 10 years."
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