OC Political

The LA Times just recently announced the results of a poll that they conducted for the gubernatorial race:

Half of Californians deemed likely to vote in the primary supported Brown’s reelection. Among his chief challengers, both Republicans, Neel Kashkari was far behind at 18% and Tim Donnelly trailed at 13%. The difference between the two vying for the second slot in the general election was within the poll’s margin of error.

The results showing Jerry Brown at over 50% are not surprising since incumbency is still of some value and Kashkari and Donnelly have been targeting each other more than Brown based on mailers and individual appearances at events.

Despite the fact that Donnelly currently trails Kashkari by 5% of the vote in the most recent poll I believe that the race may be closer than some may expect. Voter turnout is extremely low at this point and I project based on the fact that as of 6-2-2014 only 156,741 out of 743,454 (21%) of absentee ballots have been returned we are going to have a lower turnout than most people are expecting. This low turnout will benefit Donnelly more than Kashkari because Donnelly has a conservative voting base that is more likely to mail in an absentee ballot or vote at the polls.

At this point I would say that Kashkari is definitely the front-runner but I believe the race for second place will be a nail biter. The higher the turn out on election day the worse off Donnelly is.