Warren takes the lead in the Democratic candidacy in California, according to a new poll

Senator Elizabeth Warren has taken a considerable lead in the race for the Democratic presidency in California, reinforcing her leadership position for party nomination, according to the latest UC Berkeley University Survey of Government Studies, conducted for the Los Angeles Times.

The competition in California has evolved significantly since June, when the Berkeley IGS polled state voters for the Times. At that time, the race had no favorites. Although Warren was among the top candidates, his support was mostly focused on white college-educated voters and those who called themselves "very liberal."

The new poll shows that Warren expanded his base of support and began to separate from his rivals. According to the survey, it is the first choice of 29% of Democratic primary voters, against 18% in June.

"We seem to be at an inflection point of the Democratic presidential campaign," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS poll. "The changing voting preferences of California Democrats could be a harbinger of things to come from elsewhere in the country."

As Warren rose, his two closest rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, remained stuck in place. The poll reveals that the two teammates are tied for second place, with Biden at 20% and Sanders at 19%, both slightly different from their positions in June. California Senator Kamala Harris slipped to fourth place at 8%.

Warren's advance in California is important in part because the state will have by far the largest number of delegates to the Democratic Candidate Convention next summer – 497, of which 416 will be awarded to candidates who have won at least 15 % of votes during the March 3rd primary. voting is at the state level or in specific Congressional districts – but also because California's Democratic voters reflect the ethnic and racial diversity of the party at the national level.

Other recent surveys have shown that Warren was gaining ground in the United States and in the states that organized the first competitions in the nomination process. A survey of Des Moines Register on Saturday showed that she was leading in Iowa, and a poll of Monmouth College on Tuesday showed that Warren and Biden were tied in New Hampshire.

The new poll in California, however, is the first public survey to show Warren the leader of the vast and diverse type of state that she would need to win to get the nomination.

The opposite is also true: a failure in California would be a formidable obstacle for some other candidates. Sanders, for example, garnered 46% of the votes during California's primary in 2016, and his advisers viewed the state as a key part of their path to nomination, a path that now looks much steeper.

The course would be even more difficult for the junior senator of the state. Harris went through a difficult time in her national campaign and also suffered at home. Its 8% support in the survey is down 13% in June. Although she remains close to her rivals in the Bay Area, which is her political base, Harris is far behind in Southern California and in the Central Valley.

At the state level, Harris stands out slightly from Pete Buttigieg, mayor of South Bend, Indonesia, who receives 6%. No other candidate receives support above 3% and 8% of likely voters say they do not have a preference.

Another California candidate has done a lot worse: billionaire political activist and philanthropist Tom Steyer has received about 0.1% support. He was one of eight candidates with less than 1% support out of the 20 tested by the survey. Steyer spent a lot of money trying to gain support in some states organizing primary primaries and reached 2% of the vote in enough polls in Iowa and New Hampshire to qualify for the next debate candidate.

The poll says Warren "has emerged as an obvious alternative to Biden," said Eric Schickler, professor of political science at Berkeley. Until recently, "the question was whether Sanders and she would split the party's left-wing vote" and give Biden a clear way to take it away. "The answer of this poll is no."

The survey reveals some weaknesses for Warren, but more signs of strength, including several clues that his support may increase over time.

She is the most frequently cited candidate as a second choice among voters who support each of her major rivals. Nearly 7 primary voters vote for their first preference – more than any other.

Nearly half of voters say they consider Biden and Sanders; 43% say they consider Harris and 33% consider Buttigieg.

Warren also has by far the most positive image of all candidates: 77% of Democratic voters have seen it positively and only 10% negatively. The opinion of the democratic voters concerning it became more favorable during the campaign. On the other hand, Biden and Harris have seen their images deteriorate since June.

Finally, although Warren has taken a stand on the left of the party on many major issues, his support shows signs of overlapping some of the major divisions among Democrats.

On the issue of health care, for example, just over 6 out of 10 California Democrats believe that the country should adopt a Medicare option system that allows people to take out a public plan or keep their private insurance. According to the survey, nearly 4 out of 10 people subscribe to a Medicare for All plan that would eliminate private insurance and provided by employers.

Biden supports the Medicare Option Plan and receives nearly 90% of its support in California from voters in agreement with him. Sanders supports Medicare for all, and receives over 70% of his support from voters who agree with him.

Warren is siding with Sanders in this debate, but she enjoys the support of both sides: 45% of her constituents are in favor of Medicare for all, and 55% say they are in favor of the Medicare option.

The survey tested several other problems:

About three-quarters of Democratic State voters state that they strongly agree with policies to reduce the use of fossil fuels to achieve "net net" emissions of greenhouse gases over the next 25 years.

Two other ideas that have gained popularity in the campaign have majority support among Democrats but generate more opposition than reducing the use of fossil fuels. About half of the voters surveyed are in favor of changing the penalties for violating the civil penalties imposed on unauthorized border crossings, but about one in five disagree. Three in ten are also in favor of including undocumented migrants in the country's health system, but just over one in three disagree.

Democratic voters supporting Warren, Sanders or Harris are much more likely to oppose these ideas than Democratic voters supporting the poll.

The Democrats were almost equally divided on a fourth proposal: to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan, even if it meant that the Taliban militias were regaining control of the country. In the last debate on democracy, Warren and Biden declared that they would withdraw American troops from Afghanistan. President Trump has also set this goal even though many of his advisers have opposed this policy.

Each of the running candidates is drawn from a different supporter base. Warren is still doing better with white university graduates, who represent just under one-third of the state's Democratic electorate. It gets the support of 39% of them, much better than Biden and Sanders, with 14% and 12% respectively.

But the poll showed that Warren was gaining ground among the out-of-school whites, a slightly smaller group than college graduates of the California Democratic electorate, but more important in many other parts of the country. In this group, she now enjoys the support of 29%, against 20% for Sanders and 18% for Biden. This is a notable increase over the 17% support recorded in the June poll.

Biden is still leading the black electorate, which is an essential part of his support nationwide. He has the support of 32% of African-Americans, including 24% for Warren. Harris, who is black, comes in third with 18%.

Warren occupies a big lead among American voters of Asian origin, with 33%, including 19% for Sanders and 14% for Biden.

Of the major ethnic and racial groups in the state, Warren is the least good among Latinos. She drags both Biden and Sanders with Latino voters.

This deficit comes from a very low level of support for Latinos whose main language is Spanish. About 4% of them only said they support it. This group, however, has many more undecided voters than most others, and about half said they did not know enough about Warren to have an opinion of her. , indicating that its deficit could be more related to the lack of knowledge than any firm opposition.

Among Anglophone Latinos, Warren is more closely tied with Biden behind Sanders.

Warren's main weakness is the relative lack of support beyond the party's liberal base. This is less of a problem in California, where Democratic voters left, but could cripple it in other parts of the country if the nomination race became a protracted fight.

A–One-third of likely Democratic voters in California say they are "very liberal" and 37% say they are "liberal enough," the poll found. Warren leads both groups. It receives the support of 40% of the most liberal group, compared to 31% for Sanders, which is in second place. Among the most liberal, it has 32%, ahead of Biden, which has 21%.

Biden is leading the Democrats out of 3 who call themselves moderate or conservative. The second place in this group is "indecisive" and nearly one in five moderate or conservative voters are scattered among candidates beyond the top five, indicating that moderate voters who do not support Biden have not been grouped around an alternative.

Support for Warren is strongest in the San Francisco Bay Area, which is about a quarter of the likely vote in the primary. She leads with 35%. Biden, Sanders and Harris rank second, with 16%, 14% and 13% respectively, all close to the 15% threshold to receive delegates from individual districts.

The Massachusetts senator is also ahead of the county's other Democratic stronghold, Los Angeles County, but to a lesser extent, 27%, compared to 21% for Biden, 20% for Sanders and only 7% for Harris, who lives in Los Angeles.

The survey polled 4,527 registered voters across the country, including 2,272 eligible to vote in the Democratic primary. It was administered online in English and Spanish from 13 to 18 September. The results for the entire sample of Democrats have an estimated sampling error of about 3 percentage points in both directions.