John Garamendi (D): 26
David Harmer (R): 18
Mark DeSaulnier (D): 15
Joan Buchanan (D): 12
Anthony Woods (D): 5
Chris Bunch (R): 4
David Peterson (R): 4
Mark Loos (R): 2
Other: 4
Undecided: 11
(MoE: ±4.3%)
This looks to be the first public poll of the special election to fill the seat of former Rep. Ellen Tauscher, though the Garamendi campaign recently released an internal (.pdf) that only sampled Democrats and decline-to-state voters. The results of that poll line up fairly well to SUSA's findings -- but only for the Democratic candidates, of course. Garamendi's poll, from Tulchin Research, pegged the Lt. Governor at 31, with DeSaulnier and Buchanan duking it out for second place at 21 and 17 points, respectively.
Interestingly, when asked, the Garamendi camp told us that they decided not to poll GOP voters in order to save money, and that they felt that no one candidate on the Democratic side would be a particularly strong draw of Republican votes. The DeSaulnier campaign objected, saying that the partial glimpse Garamendi's poll offered put the legitimacy of the results into question, but SUSA's crosstabs suggest that Garamendi, in fact, had the most to gain from including Republicans in his sample (other than the GOP candidates, of course); SUSA finds that 14% of Republican voters choose Garamendi, compared to 3% each for Buchanan and DeSaulnier. At this point, a Garamendi-Harmer run-off seems to be the smart bet.
