Yes I’ve been assuming Newsome will be the candidate for some time. It all depends on Biden announcing he will retire after serving out his term, and the democrats throwing the nomination open, so Kamala Harris doesn’t snatch the prize. Nobody wants that.
The last ABC poll had a 5% Trump lead and methodology did not change in this one.
Partisan mix 25/25/47 Dem/Rep/Ind
It is absurdly popular on FR to say this Rep or that Rep had a xx% lead in polls before a lost election. This is pretty much always wrong.
Biden had a substantial lead in pre election polls. He hugely under-performed them. This is usually attributed to Trump voters refusing to participate, with pollsters perceived to be Swamp creatures.
This was also true in 2016 and pollsters attempted an adjustment into 2020, and were still wrong.
The key remains Biden getting 7 million more votes in 2020, with 5M of those in Calif, and 2M in NY, and 1M in IL. In no state did Trump have a lead over 1M votes.
The Biden numbers were hugely concentrated and there was no need for the Dems to risk cheat exposure in those huge margin states, so they didn’t. The VBM zero address verfy efforts were reserved for the swing states. With that overwhelming concentration, it is impossible for ztrump to have lost all of them except NC.
This ABC poll is likely real. No change to methodology grew an already existing lead.
I would hope that the fact that Newsome is the Governor of California, that would work against him. Lets face it, most people have a real disdain for California and Californians. If Newsome gets the nomination, hopefully the hatred for California will cause people to not vote at all if they don’t like Trump.