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California governor primary is still wide open, CBS News poll finds 85%
4/28/2026, 12:47:44 AM
BS Summary: This video contains 28 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Representativeness Heuristic, and Anecdotal, with Hasty Generalization as the most egregious example at 19.4% saturation with 124 hits. Analysis detected 1,308 faulty-reasoning hits from 640 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 77.3% and a BS Rank of 85% (2,674 of 16,813 videos). This video is worse (more manipulative) than 84.10% of the video peer group.
The candidates vying to become California's next governor will debate tomorrow in Southern California.
The governor's race is up in the air after the front runner Eric Swallwell dropped out over sexual assault allegations.
CBS News has new polling on this race.
joining us now is Anthony Silvanto, CBS News Executive Director of Elections and Surveys.
So Anthony, what are voters looking for in the next governor?
And what are the key issues driving voters?
Hey there, Juliet.
Great to talk to you.
I am here at the debate site for tomorrow night.
And the big backdrop here is really the cost of living with so many voters here in California saying they feel like the cost of living here has become, in their words, unmanageable.
So that's the thing that
they're first and foremost looking for these candidates to try to address.
One aspect of that, of course, is gas prices, which they say are high here in California, become a financial hardship for them.
So, that's certainly going to
be one of the top issues up here.
All of that is in the mix here as they start as they watch this candidate debate.
And I should add, Juliet, threequarters of voters tell us that debates are important in making up their minds for the candidates.
So, that just even puts more emphasis on how critical all this is.
>> Yeah, good to know.
So where do things stand in the race?
>> So the race is best described as open in
my view because you look at where the candidates stand and a couple of things couple things really stick out.
One is that they're all sort of bunched up very close to each other.
Couple of candidates in the mid teens and that tells you that it's a really fractured field especially among the Democrats.
got a lot of candidates running who are Democrats.
They're splitting up the vote, whereas just a couple of Republicans running.
What that has is a lot of Democrats who say they're concerned that it could be two Republicans that emerge from this primary.
So, you want to watch for that.
The other part of this is that the number of people who say they're un undecided, that is a larger number than any single candidate has support.
And that's another way of saying that this field is really wide open.
About a month to go before the votes are counted.
Julie,
>> sure. It could be a game changer tomorrow.
So Gavin Newsome has often challenged President Trump.
Is that something voters want to see continue with the next governor?
>> Yeah. So there's a couple of figures at play in this race.
One is Gavin Newsome.
See a lot of Democrats who say that they want a candidate who would continue his policies.
not so much the case for other voters, for independents, and certainly not for Republicans.
But the Trump factor is also here, too. You see,
Democrats, I mentioned how many candidates there are.
Their voters are looking for overwhelmingly a candidate they think will oppose President Trump.
on a couple of things specifically like
on ICE and immigration, somebody who won't support those those ICE programs here in California.
So, what really matters is you watch this debate tomorrow night, you can imagine a lot of those Democratic candidates will be looking to try to communicate how they would oppose the president.
Certainly,
he's got low low.
>> All right, Anthony Svanto. Anthony,
thank you so much.
And coverage of tomorrow's California gubanatorial debate at Panoma College, Pomona College, that is, will begin at 8:00 p.m.
Eastern.
The debate will be moderated by California CBS News reporters.
You can see live coverage of the debate.
Analysis
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