If the election were held today, Rep. Mike Levin would win re-election to the region’s most competitive congressional district, a new poll conducted for The San Diego Union-Tribune and ABC 10 News finds.
Voters surveyed in the 49th Congressional District also favor President Joe Biden for re-election. But Levin holds a wider lead over his Republican challenger in the North County and southern Orange County district than the president does over his, the SurveyUSA poll finds.
Levin would defeat his Republican challenger, Matt Gunderson, a car dealer who lost a 2022 state Senate race, by 10 percentage points if the election were held today, with 10 percent of the electorate undecided. That’s a slimmer lead than in a poll before the March primary, where Levin led Gunderson by 13 points in a hypothetical matchup.
And in questions posed to 49th District voters about the presidential race, only single-digit percentages of likely voters say that who they has changed as a result of recent news events involving both Biden and former President Donald Trump — the former’s migration crackdown and the latter’s criminal conviction.
Among likely voters in the district, Biden currently leads Trump 47 percent to 42 percent — a 5-point margin that is just outside the poll’s credibility interval, and roughly half the size of the margin by which Biden won the district in 2020. Another 6 percent said they will vote for somebody else, 1 percent said they won’t vote and 5 percent are undecided, the poll found.
The poll was conducted over a six-day period beginning less than a week after Trump was convicted of criminal business fraud charges, and one day after Biden signed off on significant new restrictions on asylum seekers.
Biden’s executive order on immigration — a widely expected response to what Democrats have seen as a political weakness — had little impact on who voters : Just 6 percent of Trump voters and 2 percent of Biden voters said it changed their allegiances. Roughly half of each candidate’s ers said the action didn’t change their vote but made them more ive of their choice.
But a larger share of Biden voters said his action had eroded their for their preferred candidate — 15 percent, versus 3 percent of Trump voters.
Trump’s conviction on 34 counts of fraud did not move the needle much with 49th District voters, either. Just 6 percent of poll respondents told SurveyUSA that the verdict changed who they — a share that held steady across different candidates’ ers.
The verdict did affect their enthusiasm, though. A majority of poll respondents said that the Trump verdict did not change who they planned to vote for in the presidential race, but that it did make them more ive of their preferred candidate.
That was true of 72 percent of Biden voters and nearly half of Trump voters. By contrast, 6 percent of Trump ers said it made them less ive of their preferred candidate, versus 1 percent of Biden ers. Roughly a third of Trump voters said the verdict had no impact, along with 17 percent of Biden backers.
Voters don’t expect to be moved, either, by the possibility of another Trump conviction prior to November; he could face trial this fall on charges he tried to interfere in the 2020 election. Only 14 percent of those polled — the same for both candidates’ ers — said that case could affect either their vote or their likelihood of voting.
And voters don’t appear very open to the possibility they’ll change their minds later and vote for a different candidate. Eighty-six percent say they will definitely vote for the candidate they now — including 90 percent of Biden voters and 90 percent of Trump voters. Those who don’t either of the leading candidates are more open to changing their minds.
That certainty was not an indicator of voters’ assessments of their preferred candidates’ presidencies, however.
Fifty-three percent of respondents said they disapprove of the job Biden is doing, versus 46 percent who approve. Fifty-four percent said they disapprove of the job Trump did, versus 45 percent who approve.
The poll was conducted among 650 people in the 49th Congressional District from Wednesday through Monday and was weighted to demographic targets. Its credibility interval ranged between 3 percent and 5 percent, depending on the question.
