Rick Caruso closes in on Karen Bass as L.A. mayor’s race tightens, poll finds
After a month of a series of debates, campaign fundraisers and the occasional candidate-aide-on-the-bus, the mayor’s race between Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa and Republican Steve Poizner is about to get tighter.
But it’s a tight race that appears, in the latest survey of voters, to be as close as it’s ever been.
The two candidates are running neck and neck in the Oct. 18 primary, with Poizner leading by one point, 34% to 35%, with more than a third of voters undecided.
“We don’t see anything to change the dynamic,” said Matt Cate, who polls for CIRCLE, a nonpartisan voter database. “If you’re between two candidates, you don’t know which one to vote for.”
Crate the L.A. mayor’s race
The latest survey of the race, which was done Sept. 27 through 29, surveyed 832 L.A. voters with an average of 24% accuracy.
But the poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
It reveals that the race was slightly closer in March but has tightened since then.
It was a month-long debate that included candidates who’ve served as LAPD commanders, a congressman and more.
What candidates said
The poll was conducted by a nonpartisan voter pollster, and Cate’s firm, CIRCLE, used a computer random sampling method known as “Klepsic sampling,” which uses the survey respondents to create a list with a weighted sample. It is a type of random sampling that ensures that the data in the survey reflects a cross-section of the population.
The poll found that a quarter of voters, and 29% of voters in the survey said they had not heard of either of the candidates and said they were undecided.
In the latest survey, more than one third of voters said it was hard to pick a favorite, another 27% said it was neither hard nor easy, and the remaining 36% said they had no preference. In a survey taken just before the first debate on Sept. 8 in San Fernando, nearly one in four voters said they