Top priority for California voters heading into 2020 primary? Homelessness

Californians are increasingly concerned about the state’s housing and homelessness crisis, according to a new poll released Wednesday night by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The poll finds a plurality of Democrats, Republicans and Independents likely to vote in the state’s March 3, 2020 primary election in agreement that homelessness is the most important issue for Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers to work on in 2020. Twenty-one percent of Democrats and Independents called it the top issue, compared to 29 percent of Republicans.

Housing affordability and the environment were the next highest priorities for likely Democratic primary voters, while Republicans were more concerned about immigration and taxes.

Health care has become a lesser focus for Democrats, according to the poll. While policy differences surrounding the Affordable Care Act and Medicare for All has dominated the discussion at the Democratic presidential debates thus far, candidates visiting California will likely need to focus more of their energy on explaining how they’d tackle homelessness and work to make housing cheaper.

“When the candidates for president come out here in the coming weeks, they’re gonna have to talk about homelessness and housing,” said Mark Baldassare, president of PPIC. “To not mention (these topics) will seem like they’re oblivious to what Californians now say they most care about. You’re going to get questions from voters about this.”

Newsom criticized moderators at last month’s Democratic debate in Los Angeles for not asking candidates about homelessness or housing — two growing issues in the Golden State.

“It’s such a big issue here, but it’s not as big of an issue across the rest of the country,” Newsom said of the lack of discussion on housing and homelessness. “It’s never been a top agenda item from the national prism. Let’s be honest: In the last decade, it hasn’t been even at the state. I think it’s one of the reasons it’s as bad as it is.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden said on The Bee’s “California Nation” podcast last week that homelessness and housing are “gigantic issues.” He said no American should have to pay more than 30 percent of their income on housing and said he’d give first-time home buyers a $15,000 down payment from the federal government.

In a question worded differently in a November PPIC survey, 21 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said at the time they most wanted to hear presidential candidates talk about health care at the debates. Four percent of respondents said in November they most wanted to hear about homelessness, while 2 percent preferred discussion on housing costs and availability. In the poll released Wednesday, however, just 5 percent of likely Democratic voters considered health care the most important issue for Newsom and the California Legislature to work on in 2020.

Baldassare said a “combination of things” are contributing to the increased emphasis Californians are placing on housing and homelessness, including national attention from attacks the state has received from President Donald Trump, local news organizations covering the problem more aggressively, a greater number of homeless people living in respondents’ communities and Newsom prioritizing the issue in his latest budget proposal.

“Homelessness is an issue people are obviously hearing about and reading about, but they’re also experiencing it firsthand in California,” Baldassare said.

The poll released Wednesday night follows an earlier release from the organization about the state of California’s 2020 Democratic primary race, which showed Bernie Sanders surging to the top but in a statistical tie with Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.

The margin of error among the 967 California adult likely voters in PPIC’s January survey was 4.6 percentage points. For the subgroup of 530 likely Democratic primary voters, the sampling error was 6.5 percent.

This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 9:00 PM with the headline "Top priority for California voters heading into 2020 primary? Homelessness."