Most California voters say Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has focused more on a potential bid for the White House than his work in the governor’s mansion, according to a new poll.
In Wednesday’s poll from the Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS) at the University of California, Berkeley, 54 percent of respondents said that amid Newsom’s last two years in office, his focus is directed more toward “doing things that might benefit him as a possible candidate for president” rather than “governing California and helping to solve the problems the state is facing.”
Twenty-six percent in the poll disagreed, stating he has focused more on governing than the national stage.
Newsom, an increasingly significant figure in Democratic politics in the last few years, recently launched a podcast which has included prominent supporters of President Trump as guests. The podcast has brought up questions about the governor’s political ambitions as he wraps up his term-limited time in office and has kept the door open to a White House bid.
During the 2024 presidential campaign, questions swirled around Newsom as a possible candidate for the White House, but the governor pushed back on the idea.
Newsom didn’t receive a warm reception from California voters on his job approval in the IGS poll, with 46 percent saying they backed his “handling of his job as Governor overall” and the same percentage saying they were unhappy with the jobs outlook in the Golden State.
The IGS poll took place between April 21 and 28, featuring 6,201 registered voters and plus or minus 2 percentage points as its “likely” sampling error.
