California electorate is younger, more diverse. Many worry Trump would not accept defeat, poll shows

A broad swath of the California electorate is expected to cast ballots in this election, although some voters are concerned about the prospect of one of the presidential candidates not accepting the outcome, according to a new poll released Tuesday.

Presidential elections historically draw a far greater turnout than off-year elections, and 2024 is bound to be no different. The election is expected to turn out the usual participants: older, white people; homeowners and those with higher education or income levels.

But the election is also expected to draw turnout from lower propensity voter groups — including at least 65% of renters, voters of color and those with lower education or income levels, according to the poll conducted by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

“The results show that the California electorate has become larger and more diverse with increasing percentages of voters of color engaging in the process,” G. Cristina Mora, the institute’s co-director, said in a statement. “Younger Latino and Asian Americans seem to be making much more of an impact, as their voting engagement has increased significantly in each presidential election since 2016.”

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The UC Berkeley poll, conducted in English and Spanish from Oct. 22-29, surveyed 4,838 registered voters in California, most of whom had either cast a vote already or were considered likely to vote. Mark DiCamillo, director of the poll, said he expected to see high turnout again in this election, though he doubted it would reach 2020’s record levels, when almost 18 million Californians cast ballots.

“The fact that Trump was the president, it really stimulated Californians to vote ... to try to get him out,” DiCamillo said. “It really wasn’t so much the strength of Joe Biden, it was about Donald Trump. People, at least from California, wanted to get him out of the office.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, the first Californian to lead a major party’s presidential ticket in decades, will almost certainly win the state. But the UC Berkeley Institute found in recent polling that Harris has a 22-point lead over Trump in California, down from Biden’s 29-point margin four years ago.

“I don’t see the same kind of fervor,” DiCamillo said.

California voters are also facing what comes after election day with some trepidation. In another IGS poll released Tuesday, 64% of those surveyed said that if Harris wins, they don’t believe Trump will concede. Two in three California voters said they expected Harris would concede if Trump wins.

Trump’s continued denial of his 2020 defeat has cast doubt about how he will handle the upcoming election results.

Harris voters are almost certain — 9 in 10 — that Trump would not concede but Harris would. Trump’s supporters are more mixed, with 44% believing that he would admit defeat, 20% thinking he would not and 36% saying they aren’t sure. If Harris lost, 32% of Trump supporters in California believed Harris would admit defeat, compared with 37% who said she would not and 31% who are unsure.

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Prior to this election, Berkeley IGS pollsters had never asked voters whether they expected a candidate to accept the election’s outcome, DiCamillo said.

“It wasn’t even considered an issue,” he said. “But since 2020, it’s now an issue and it’s mainly because of Donald Trump.”

Wearing an “I voted” sticker on his sleeve, Juan Molina, 61, of Santa Ana said he doubted Trump would accept the results if Harris were to win.

“They’re laying the groundwork to contest the results,” said Molina, who works in real estate appraisal. “Trump knows that he’s going to lose.”

Molina said it was routine for him to vote early. He came to the Orange County Registrar of Voters to vote in person on Monday because he had work Tuesday and would not have time for crowds.

Berkeley polling also found that an overwhelming majority of Californians opted to mail their ballots or drop them off ahead of election day. Just 14% of Californians will vote in person on Election Day, the poll found. Republicans are more likely to choose in-person voting — 22% compared with just 8% of Democrats.

The Republican Party has made a major push to encourage its members to vote early, reversing its course from four years ago when Trump decried mail-in voting as fraudulent, leading to his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Trump’s message this year is to make the turnout “too big to rig.” DiCamillo noted that mail-in voting has steadily increased.

“People really like voting this way,” he said, adding that early voting allows people to review election materials and research ballot measures and candidates in real time, rather than having to remember everything in the polling booth.

About 83% of the nearly 27 million adults in California who are eligible to vote are registered.

In her latest report on California’s voter registration, Secretary of State Shirley Weber said a record 22.6 million Californians are registered to vote, which is 548,211 more than four years ago. Democrats make up 45% of registered voters, Republicans 25% and no party preference 22%. The number of Republicans in the state ticked up slightly compared with 2020 — by about 1 percentage point, the secretary of state report showed.

Times staff writer Angie Orellana Hernandez, in Santa Ana, contributed to this report.