Question:
[likely voters only] As you may know, California now has a top-two primary system in which voters can cast ballots for any candidate, regardless of party, and the two candidates receiving the most votes, regardless of party, will advance to the general election. If the June primary for governor were being held today, and these were the candidates, who would you vote for? [rotate names* and then ask: “or someone else?”]
53% Jerry Brown, a Democrat
17 Tim Donnelly, a Republican
2 someone else (specify)
28 don’t know

* Republican Abel Maldonado ended his gubernatorial bid January 16, two days into interviews; those who had chosen him were called back to see who they prefer without him in the race. Republican Neel Kashkari announced his intent to run on the last day of interviewing; his name will be included in future surveys.

About this Poll
Findings in this report are based on a survey of 1,706 California adult residents, including 1,195 interviewed on landline telephones and 511 interviewed on cell phones. Interviews took an average of 19 minutes to complete. Interviewing took place on weekend days and weekday nights from January 14–21, 2014.

Landline interviews were conducted using a computer-generated random sample of telephone numbers that ensured that both listed and unlisted numbers were called. All landline telephone exchanges in California were eligible for selection, and the sample telephone numbers were called as many as six times to increase the likelihood of reaching eligible households. Once a household was reached, an adult respondent (age 18 or older) was randomly chosen for interviewing using the “last birthday method” to avoid biases in age and gender.

Cell phones were included in this survey to account for the growing number of Californians who use them. These interviews were conducted using a computer-generated random sample of cell phone numbers. All cell phone numbers with California area codes were eligible for selection, and the sample telephone numbers were called as many as eight times to increase the likelihood of reaching an eligible respondent. Once a cell phone user was reached, it was verified that this person was age 18 or older, a resident of California, and in a safe place to continue the survey (e.g., not driving).

The sampling error, taking design effects from weighting into consideration, is ±3.8 percent at the 95 percent confidence level for the total unweighted sample of 1,706 adults. This means that 95 times out of 100, the results will be within 3.8 percentage points of what they would be if all adults in California were interviewed. The sampling error for unweighted subgroups is larger: For the 1,433 registered voters, the sampling error is ±4.2 percent; for the 1,151 likely voters, it is ±4.6 percent; for the 224 uninsured adults, it is ±9.6%. Sampling error is only one type of error to which surveys are subject. Results may also be affected by factors such as question wording, question order, and survey timing.