A new poll shows Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Early taking a lead over Democratic candidates entering the 2024 primary race in California to replace Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein.

The poll, conducted by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, showed Early is slightly ahead of Democratic Representative Katie Porter, with the Republican receiving 18 percent of support from likely primary voters.

Feinstein said in February that she will not seek reelection in 2024 and pledged to finish the remainder of her term, despite recent calls for her resignation due to concerns about her mental and physical well-being. The 89-year-old senator had missed dozens of Senate votes as she recovered from shingles.

The shingles infection triggered inflammation of the brain known as encephalitis, and facial paralysis known as Ramsay Hunt syndrome, raising concerns that her office was not revealing to the public the severity of her illness during her absence. When Feinstein returned to the Capitol on May 10, she required a wheelchair due to temporary vision and balance impairments caused by the infection, according to the senator.

Dianne Feinstein To Retire End of 2024
Senator Dianne Feinstein (L) arrives for a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting in Washington, D.C., on May 11, 2023, after being absent for nearly three months due to a serious case of shingles. A new poll showed Republican Senate candidate Eric Early taking a lead over Democratic candidates entering the 2024 primary race in California to replace Feinstein.
JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images

The UC Berkeley poll showed that other Democratic candidates such as Representative Adam Schiff received 14 percent of voter support and Representative Barbara Lee at 9 percent, while 42 percent of those surveyed said they are either undecided or that they plan to vote for someone else. Those results would likely change when Democrats are consolidated around one candidate in a state with mostly Democratic-leaning voters.

The survey was conducted May 17-22 in English and Spanish among 7,465 registered California voters, including 5,236 who were considered likely to vote in the primary, with a margin of error plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Newsweek reached out to the California Democratic Party via email for comment.

Early announced his candidacy for the Senate seat in April with an aim to campaign for the votes of “forgotten” California residents who are struggling with a spike in crime and drug use, high taxes, and a “far-left” agenda in the government, according to his campaign website.

“As our next US Senator, Eric will stand-up to the Socialist woke interests that control Washington, DC, fight to preserve and protect our Democracy, and fight for ordinary Californians who are being left behind,” his campaign description reads.

The Republican candidate lost in the state attorney general race in 2022 and 2018, and lost the general election for the U.S. House California District 28 seat in 2020, according to Ballotpedia.

Mark DiCamillo, a pollster and the director of the Institute of Governmental Studies, told the Los Angeles Times that Early’s lead is mainly due to his Republican affiliation.

“It could have been John Smith. You put the Republican tag next to the name, and they’re going to win the supportive Republicans,” DiCamillo said. “It just opens up the dynamics of the race to one where we are really thinking about the possibility of a Democrat versus a Republican in the general—or will two Democrats rise to the top?”

DiCamillo said that there is a possibility that a Democrat would face a Republican in the upcoming race, even though the 2016 and 2018 Senate elections featured two Democrats running against each other in the general election.

“…whoever that Democrat is, I’m sure they’re rooting for that outcome because the election is pretty much over if that happens,” he said.

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