On the Fringe: Do California Voters See Trump as a Viable Candidate?

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are leading in a new poll released Sunday, but trouble may be brewing for the Republican Party.

The real estate mogul is leading his Republican counterparts by a good margin, but things aren’t looking up for Trump in California.

Among Republican voters polled, 24 percent said they supported Trump, 18 percent supported Dr. Ben Carson, and 6 percent supported Gov. Jeb Bush and Sen. Ted Cruz, according to the latest USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll.

However, in a head-to-head poll between Trump and Carson, 43 percent of Republicans supported Carson over 32 percent for Trump -- an 11-point difference.

The news isn’t particularly good for Republican presidential candidates who have previously held elected office.

“More than half of the Republican primary voters who have chosen a candidate are supporting someone who has never held elected office,” said Dan Schnur, director of the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll and director of the Unruh Institute of Politics of USC. “Sheer anger toward Washington is handily defeating ideology in the Republican primary.”

The poll’s result is showing Trump’s lead among the GOP field maybe slipping and California voters may see him as a fringe candidate.

When asked on how serious they supported Republican candidates for president, 61 percent of registered Republican voters said they supported Carson.

Overall, 21 percent of registered Republicans said they were undecided on a candidate.

“The Republican primary is still wide open,” said David Kanevsky, research director of Republican polling firm American Viewpoint. “Undecided is in second place, just behind Trump. Where those undecided voters break is going to be very important.”

Meanwhile, among Democrats and declined-to-state voters, Clinton’s hold is as strong as ever. She is currently holding a 16-point lead against Sen. Bernie Sanders — 42 percent vs. 26 percent for Sanders.

Clinton’s support is particularly strong among minority voters. The former Secretary of State drew 56 percent of black voters, 41 percent of Asian voters and 54 percent of Latino voters. By comparison, Sanders received support from 20 percent from both black and Asian voters, and 17 percent of Latino voters.

“Her overall vote share is tracking with national averages and that’s in a state with a pretty significant progressive block compared to the nation as a whole,” said Drew Lieberman, vice president of Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, part of the bipartisan team with Republican polling firm American Viewpoint that conducted the USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll. “What you see going on here is that she has very solid coalition of moderate-type Democrats plus non-white voters that someone like Sanders or anybody from her left flank would have to overcome in order to cut into her vote share.”

When Vice President Joe Biden was added as a potential candidate, both Clinton and Sanders numbers dropped equally, but Clinton still command a comfortable lead.

“California is a media state — television, social media, etc. — so it’s not surprising that you see candidates with strong media presences doing very well in California,” Kanevsky said.

The poll of 1,500 registered voters was conducted Aug. 29 – Sept. 8 has a margin of error of +/- 2.8 percentage points.

--Photos courtesy of the candidates