We haven't had a meaningful poll since Porter's Nov. internal (a Feb. UC Berkeley poll polled only Dems & non-affiliated voters, making it irrelevant since CA has nonpartisan blanket primaries), & in the meantime since, Porter (30%) got sh*t for announcing during a natural disaster (& not waiting for DiFi) in addition to the Klob-like sh*t she gets everytime a bad employee-treatment story drops, Schiff (29%) entered with Pelosi's support, Lee (9%) got in with the support of Kamala's ex-statewide network (incl. her sister as well as her ex-CoS who's literally running Lee's Super PAC) & pretty much the rest of the Bay Area machine's support (not to mention the support of pretty much every major Black elected official in the state except still-neutrals Maxine Waters & Shirley Weber), significant because regionalism still matters somewhat in CA politics & the Bay Area has notoriously punched above its weight in previous elections (& its machine is currently hoping to retain its hold on DiFi's Senate seat after losing the Boxer/Harris seat to Padilla, nevermind DiFi herself siding with Pelosi in wanting SoCal's to have both seats with Padilla & Schiff), & Khanna (6%) chose not to even get in & instead endorsed Lee.
This analysis is correct in its broad strokes but not exactly accurate in its details. There's some understandable confusion about the nature of the group that wins elections in California. It's true that California is a machine state in a way that few others are, but it doesn't make sense to say that the machine lost a Senate seat when Alex Padilla was appointed, seeing as that he was the handpicked choice of Gavin Newsom. If that were the case, then it would mean either that Newsom's affiliation with the machine was irrelevant to his selection or else that he was never part of the machine to begin with. In either case it wouldn't be a very successful machine. Likewise, Nancy Pelosi very openly coming out for Adam Schiff would indicate that residence is really not all that important.
Politicians supporting Lee are likelier to have close ties to Sacramento, have supported Bernie Sanders in the past, and not be white. By contrast, politicians supporting Schiff are likelier to have closer ties to Washington, have opposed Bernie Sanders in the past, and be white. (No politicians support Porter.) This does mean that Lee's support among elected officials tends to be northern because northerners are disproportionately represented in positions of power in Sacramento and because she herself is a northerner, but I think it's definitely possible to overstate the importance of pure geography. If Lee wins the election she'll have won Los Angeles County.
Newsom will appoint Lee in a few days...
Frankly, I don't even think she will make it through another month...
Even if DiFi DOES croak in a month or two, I don't think that Newsom would just give Lee an incumbency advantage going into the primaries.
He would absolutely do this. Take a look at all the other appointments Newsom has made to statewide office (and there have been many).
Poll
