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Poll: If Trump wins the White House, Californians want their next senator to fight back

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Poll: If Trump wins the White House, Californians want their next senator to fight back

If President Trump is elected in November, California voters have a clear message for the Golden State’s next senator: Protect us.

If Kamala Harris is elected, however, Californians want to see their next senator focus on legislation that helps the state as much as possible.

Those divergent findings come from a new poll released Friday by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, sizing up how voters feel about the two Senate candidates: Democratic Rep. Adam B. Schiff and Republican Steve Garvey.

The poll, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, shows how the largest state in the nation may act as a political counterweight if Trump is elected in November — or as an ally to Harris, if she becomes the first California Democrat to win the White House.

With less than a month to go in the race to replace the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the poll shows that Schiff has maintained his wide advantage over Garvey. About 53% of likely voters say they prefer Schiff, a number that hasn’t budged all year, while about 36% prefer Garvey and 11% remain undecided.

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The poll of 3,045 Californians was conducted Sept. 25 to Oct. 1, before this week’s testy debate between the Senate candidates in Burbank.

Schiff’s high-profile positions as chair of the House Intelligence Committee and lead manager of Trump’s first impeachment trial vaulted him to national prominence.

At the Tuesday debate, Garvey tried to portray Schiff as someone too caught up in a vendetta against Trump to focus on issues important to California voters, asking him: “How can you think about one man every day and focus on that when you’ve got millions of people in California to take care of?”

But if Schiff is elected to the Senate and Trump is elected to the White House, California’s likely voters want to see the Burbank congressman continue that role, said Mark DiCamillo, the director of the Berkeley IGS poll.

“Schiff has portrayed himself as the anti-Trump, and these data conform to that,” DiCamillo said.

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Nearly 6 in 10 likely California voters would want to see the state’s next senator prioritize “protecting California’s interests and opposing federal legislation that would undercut existing state laws and policies” if Trump is elected, the poll found.

More than 4 in 5 Schiff supporters, and more than half of undecided voters, say that protecting California’s interests should be a top priority.

But California’s likely voters also want to see their next senator reaching across the aisle to work with the other party, with 50% saying he should focus on passing bipartisan legislation. And 49% said that if Trump is elected, the state’s next senator should prioritize “standing up to the president and challenging his executive orders.”

The priorities of the California electorate shift dramatically when considering a Harris administration.

A 56% majority said they would want California’s next senator to prioritize policies and laws that bring as many benefits as possible to the state.

Meanwhile, 48% would want to see Schiff or Garvey collaborate with the Harris administration on her legislative agenda, while 31% said he should prioritize defending Harris from partisan attacks in the Senate.

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The poll found that Garvey, who played for the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres for nearly two decades, leads Schiff in the Inland Empire and the Central Valley.

The two men are in a dead heat in purple Orange County, with 46% of voters supporting each candidate.

Garvey, DiCamillo said, “is doing fairly well for a Republican statewide.” But he faces the same “structural problem as any Republican running statewide.” Among California’s registered voters, Democrats outnumber Republicans by almost 2 to 1.

Schiff has maintained a wide lead in California’s two most populous areas, which represent nearly half of the electorate. In Los Angeles County, 59% of likely voters planned to back Schiff, and in the San Francisco Bay Area, nearly 7 in 10 said they would.

Garvey said at Tuesday’s debate that he has voted for Trump three times, including in the 2024 presidential primary. But he hasn’t sought Trump’s endorsement, which Trump said last month was “a big mistake.”

“If he doesn’t have MAGA he’s got no chance,” Trump said, referring to the acronym that stands for his motto, “Make America Great Again,” and his political base.

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The data suggest that Garvey does, in fact, have support from Trump’s loyal fans. Among respondents who characterized their political views as MAGA, 92% said they planned to support Garvey.

By contrast, Schiff’s support was highest among people who identified as progressive (89%) and pro-choice (79%).

The two men had relatively similar disapproval ratings. Among likely voters, 43% said they had a favorable view of Schiff, compared with 34% unfavorable. For Garvey, about 35% of voters had a favorable view, 35% said they had a negative view, and 30% had no opinion.

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Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

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Trump stirs GOP primary drama with visit to Massie’s Kentucky home turf

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President Donald Trump is taking his feud with Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., to the libertarian lawmaker’s home turf on Wednesday.

Trump is expected to hold an event in Hebron, Kentucky, on Wednesday, the Republican Party of Kentucky announced on social media Monday. It’s located in the northern part of the state’s 4th Congressional District, which Massie represents.

Massie’s primary rival, Ed Gallrein, will attend the Hebron event, his campaign confirmed to Fox News Digital on Tuesday, while deferring all other questions on the matter to the White House.

Massie himself will miss the event due to a previously scheduled official engagement, his spokesperson told Fox News Digital.

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KHANNA AND MASSIE THREATEN TO FORCE A VOTE ON IRAN AS PROSPECT OF US ATTACK LOOMS

President Donald Trump will be visiting Rep. Thomas Massie’s congressional district on Wednesday. (Win McNamee/Getty Images; Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)

When asked about the visit, White House spokeswoman Liz Huston told Fox News Digital, “President Trump will visit the great states of Ohio and Kentucky on Wednesday to tout his economic victories and detail his Administration’s aggressive, ongoing efforts to lower prices and make America more affordable.”

The president has thrown his considerable influence behind Gallrein to unseat Massie after the GOP lawmaker publicly defied Trump on multiple occasions.

MASSIE, KHANNA TO VISIT DOJ TO REVIEW UNREDACTED EPSTEIN FILES

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Massie most recently was one of two House Republicans to vote to stop Trump’s joint operation in Iran with Israel, though the legislation was successfully blocked by the majority of GOP lawmakers and a handful of Democrats.

Ed Gallrein, left, seen with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House. (Ed Gallrein congressional campaign)

He was also one of two Republicans to vote against Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” last year.

Trump in turn has hurled a slew of personal attacks against Massie, including calling him “weak and pathetic” in a statement endorsing Gallrein in October.

“He only votes against the Republican Party, making life very easy for the Radical Left. Unlike ‘lightweight’ Massie, a totally ineffective LOSER who has failed us so badly, CAPTAIN ED GALLREIN IS A WINNER WHO WILL NOT LET YOU DOWN,” Trump posted on Truth Social at the time, one of numerous criticisms targeting the Kentucky Republican through the years.

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He called Massie the “worst Republican congressman” in July amid Massie’s bipartisan push to force the Department of Justice (DOJ) to release its files on Jeffrey Epstein.

Then-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California, during a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2025. (Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

But Massie has so far appeared to defy political gravity despite making political enemies out of both Trump and House GOP leaders.

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He handily defeated multiple primary challengers in 2024 and 2022, despite public feuds with Trump, and has served his district since 2012.

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Gallrein is a retired Navy SEAL and farmer who launched his campaign days after Trump made his endorsement. Their primary election day is May 19.

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California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field

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California Democrats launch pricey polling effort to winnow crowded gubernatorial field

As anxiety mounts among California Democrats about the potential of a Republican being elected governor, the state party will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on polling to assess the viability of the sprawling field of candidates hoping to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, according to plans released Tuesday.

The move comes after nearly every Democratic candidate refused party leaders’ call last week to withdraw from the race to avoid splitting the vote in the June primary — an outcome that could lead to a Republican being elected to statewide office for the first time in two decades.

“Candidates have filed, and now they’ve got the opportunity to showcase their viability, their path to win. I want to simply ensure that everybody has information to fully understand the current state of the race,” said Rusty Hicks, the leader of the California Democratic Party.

As campaign season ramps up, the series of six polls will allow “candidates, supporters, the media, voters, anyone and everyone to have a clear understanding of what is or is not happening in this particular race,” he said.

The filing deadline to appear on the June 2 ballot was Friday. Three days earlier, Hicks released an open letter urging candidates who did not have a path to victory to withdraw from the race. Of the nine prominent Democrats who had announced runs for governor, only one heeded his call: former state Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon.

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That means the eight other candidates’ names will appear on the ballot, regardless of whether they decide to later drop out. And that creates the possibility of a Republican winning the race because of how California elections are decided.

The state has a voter-approved top-two primary system, under which the two candidates who receive the most votes in the June primary advance to the November general election, regardless of party.

Two prominent Republicans will appear on the ballot: former conservative commentator Steve Hilton and Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco. Even though Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1, and the state’s electorate last elevated Republicans to statewide office in 2006, it is mathematically possible for Democrats to splinter the vote, allowing the two GOP candidates to advance.

Under such a scenario, not only would Republicans be guaranteed the leadership of the nation’s most-populous state, but Democratic voter turnout also would probably be depressed in November, potentially affecting down-ballot races such as those that could determine control of Congress.

Hicks’ call last week prompted concerns among candidates of color, including former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, that the effort was aimed at every nonwhite candidate in the race.

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The state party chairman responded that his letter was not aimed at any specific candidate.

“It’s not something I lose sleep over,” Hicks said when asked about the racial claims. But he added that the voter surveys will be conducted by Los Angeles-based Evitarus, the state’s only Black- and Latino-led full-service polling firm, and will oversample historically underrepresented communities: Latino, Black and Asian American voters.

Hicks said the polling will cost “multiple six figures” but did not specify the exact amount.

The first poll will be released on March 24, and then five additional surveys will come out every seven to 10 days until voters start receiving mail ballots in early May.

“We’re putting this forward to ensure everyone is armed with the information they need to clearly have an eyes-wide-open assessment of where the state of the race currently is between now and when ballots land in the mailboxes of voters,” Hicks said.

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Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’

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Trump reveals top issues GOP should focus on to secure midterms victory: ‘I’ve never been more confident’

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President Donald Trump outlined five key items he believes will tip the upcoming midterm elections in the GOP’s favor — if Republicans can muscle them through Congress.

“No transgender mutilation surgery for our children,” Trump told an audience at the Republican Members’ Issues Conference. “Voter ID, citizenship [verification], mail-in ballots, we don’t want men playing in women’s sports.”

It’s the best of Trump. Those are the best of Trump. This is the number one priority, it should be, for the House,” Trump said.

Trump’s exhortations to Republican lawmakers come as the GOP wages an uphill campaign to hang on to a controlling majority in the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. He framed his legislative priorities as a way for Republicans to capitalize on popular demands within the GOP base that would increase their chances of preserving a Republican governing trifecta.

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President Donald Trump gestures as he boards Air Force One before departing Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 1, 2026. (Mandel Ngan / AFP via Getty Images)

HOUSE REPUBLICANS PUSH ELECTION OVERHAUL WITH VOTER ID, MAIL-IN BALLOT CHANGES AHEAD OF MIDTERMS

Currently, Republicans hold just four more seats than Democrats in the House of Representatives.

The GOP holds six more than Democrats in the Senate.

To keep the numbers in their favor, Republicans will need to beat historical trends. In the vast majority of past cases, parties that capture the White House in presidential elections face blowback in the midterms. Notably, the last time a majority party gained seats in both chambers of Congress in the midterms came under the Bush administration in 2002, following devastating attacks on the World Trade Center.

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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, left, and President Donald Trump shake hands during an Invest America roundtable in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, District of Columbia, on June 9, 2025. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

REPUBLICANS, TRUMP RUN INTO SENATE ROADBLOCK ON VOTER ID BILL

Trump said he believes Republicans have a shot at bucking the trend come November if they focus on his list.

“It’ll guarantee the midterms,” Trump said of his legislative priorities.

Republicans have already taken strikes towards two of them through the SAVE America Act, a piece of legislation that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and cast a ballot. That bill cleared the House last month for a second time in the 119th Congress.

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Its future is uncertain in the Senate, where Republicans would need the assistance of seven Democrats to overcome the 60-vote threshold to defeat a filibuster. Democrats, for their part, believe the legislation would disenfranchise voters who cannot readily provide documented proof of citizenship through a passport, REAL ID, or birth certificate. 

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. has promised a vote on the package despite its long odds. 

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, talks with a guest during a “Only Citizens Vote Bus Tour” rally in Upper Senate Park to urge Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act on Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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Several members have introduced bills on transgender issues, although none of them have cleared either chamber.

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I’ve never been more confident that if we keep these promises and deliver on this popular agenda, the American people will stand with us in overwhelming numbers, just as they did in 2024,” Trump said.

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