If you’re one of the hundreds of candidates for the Legislature, Congress, or even the pending US Senate race, one data question is hovering over everything you’re planning for the 2024 primary election: what will turnout look like?
The California state Capitol at dusk. (Photo: Karin Hildebrand Lau, via Shutterstock)You are an incumbent officeholder. You’d like to keep on being an incumbent officeholder. That means a re-election campaign – you know, where you kowtow to special interests, rail against fraud and waste and, above all, avoid being called “one of those Sacramento politicians” — even if you are one of those Sacramento politicians.
Voter approval of the job that Democrat Jerry Brown is doing as Governor has reached a new high. At present, 59% of registered voters approve of his performance in office, nearly twice the proportion (32%) who disapprove. Brown also holds a huge preference lead when likely voters in the June open primary election are asked whom they would support if the election were being held today.
“He’s both popular and vulnerable,” said Raphael J. Sonenshein, executive director of the Edmund G. “Pat” Brown Institute of Public Affairs at Cal State L.A. in an interview with the Times. “On the one hand, he’s a very skilled politician, very popular in many of the communities in the county and a known reformer and progressive. At the same time, he has tremendous flaws in managerial areas that have caused all kinds of headaches in the department.”