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In the 2022 midterms, the national polls typically found that the economy, inflation and threats to democracy (especially in the NBC News survey) ranked as the public’s top issues and concerns.
But a new Quinnipiac University poll of California finds a different issue at the top of voters’ minds in the Golden State: homelessness.
According to the survey, 22% of all California voters named homelessness as the state’s most urgent issue — followed by affordable housing at 17%, inflation at 10%, taxes at 9% and crime and climate change tied at 8% each.
By party, Democrats said that homelessness (26%) and affordable housing (24%) were their top issues; independents said it was homelessness (23%) and affordable housing (15%); and Republicans said it was immigration (17%), homelessness (14%) and taxes (14%).
A separate question in the Quinnipiac poll found 84% of all California voters saying that homelessness is a very serious problem in the state, and 69% said the state was doing too little to help homeless people.
The Quinnipiac poll also found California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s job rating at 44% approve, 43% disapprove among all registered voters.
For President Biden, it was 48% approve, 47% disapprove.
And for retiring Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., it was 37% approve, 44% disapprove, while for Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., it was 38% approve, 29% disapprove.
The Quinnipiac University poll was conducted Feb. 23-27 of 1,091 registered voters in California, and it has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.0 percentage points.