With less than two weeks until Election Day, there’s little hard data about who’s leading the race for Nancy Pelosi’s seat. Although Scott Wiener has long been considered the favorite (including by betting markets), most of that assessment was vibes — until today.
State Sen. Scott Wiener has a narrow lead over San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan in the race for a House seat, polls show.
Through mid-October, only two polls of the post-primary race had been publicly released — both of which came from the candidates’ campaigns (in the spring, the Chronicle sponsored a poll of the primary). Such “internal” polls are probably best understood as a public relations effort.
But Thursday, the Democracy and Fair Elections Lab at the University of Southern California, a neutral pollster, published an independent survey — though it had a relatively small sample size, with 454 likely voters responding. Christian Grose, the political scientist who led the poll, indicated it was part of a research effort to understand Democrat-versus-Democrat contests in California.
Remarkably, all three polls showed roughly the same result: Wiener is ahead, but by single digits. And on USC’s poll, his lead is within the margin of error, meaning the race remains competitive.
The USC poll found that Wiener has a 47% to 41% lead over Chan, with 9% of respondents undecided and 3% not planning to vote. When undecided voters were forced to choose, Wiener came out slightly ahead, with a 51% to 44% lead over Chan, and with 5% not planning to vote.
Pelosi — who remains popular with voters, per the poll — has endorsed and campaigned heavily for Chan, hosting and attending fundraisers and lending her campaign a top aide. Chan has also racked up endorsements among many powerful Pelosi allies.
But even Pelosi supporters aren’t totally sold on Chan, the poll found — of people who said they strongly approve of Pelosi, 54% said they support Wiener. The margin is even larger for those who said they only somewhat approve of Pelosi, with 64% supporting Wiener.
Chan’s support was strongest among those who self-identified as “working class” as well as those who describe themselves as “very liberal.” Respondents who described themselves as “somewhat liberal” or “moderate” were more likely to support Wiener. Wiener also had more support among people who self-identified as “upper class,” while people who called themselves middle class were equally split.
Beyond the CA-11 race, the poll asked respondents their opinions about other components of city and national politics. The poll found that Mayor Daniel Lurie still enjoys broad support, with 63% approving of him — though that’s less than the 74% approval rate reported in the Chronicle’s spring poll, which had more than double the number of respondents.
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Respondents were less thrilled with the political movements that represent them, and the ideas they espouse. Just as many said they had a negative opinion of the Democratic Party as said they had a positive one, with both at 43%. The remaining voters were neutral or didn’t know.
Respondents were similarly split on their opinion about the Democratic Socialists of America — 36% had a positive opinion, and another 36% had a negative opinion, with the rest saying they were neutral or didn’t know.
