Goodwin Simon Strategic Research came out with a poll last week showing Alameda’s Vice Mayor Rob Bonta – the frontrunner candidate in the Assembly District 18 race – with a 16-point lead ahead of Peralta Community College District Trustee Abel Guillen for the November elections.
Although the two seem to have run a close race so far, both have strengths in the field of running budgets within different areas of management.
Bonta is Vice Mayor of the city of Alameda and Deputy City Attorney. He has worked on improving Alameda’s city budget and has worked closely with the Obama administration to develop land around Alameda’s former naval base saving thousands of jobs without using taxpayer’s money. As a family man, Bonta has also strengthened public safety within Alameda.
Guillen, a Peralta Community College District Trustee, has strengths in the field of education. He has brought transparency to the fiscal finances, and higher quality management to the district. He has “divested” the district’s money from Wall Street and secured it in safer investments, delivering six balanced budgets. Guillen has also been improving the quality of education for all students.
The first primary elections narrowed the potential candidates from four to two, with Bonta coming in first with around 37 percent of the vote and Guillen trailing with 30 percent of the votes. Though now with Democrat Joel Young and Republican Rhonda Weber out of the picture, 33 percent of the votes will be split between the two candidates.
The telephoned survey was taken between June 23-25 and surveyed 404-registered voters within newly drawn District 18. The poll is said to have a 95 percent confidence level with a plus or minus five-percent margin of error. The company contacted people who registered their home numbers along with their mobile phone in the voter profiles.
Latino and Oakland residents are said to be Guillen’s main constituency. However according to the poll, Bonta has an 18-point lead in Oakland, consisting of African-American and white voters accompanied with a 16 point lead with Latino voters. It also points out that Bonta received a 20-point lead from Democratic voters and a 15-point lead by Republican voters.
“I don’t know about the polls, if you look at the results in the primary elections I received a majority of the votes within Oakland,” said Guillen in reference to Oakland voters.
The survey reveals Bonta with the upper hand containing a majority of votes casted for Young and Weber, with a 13-point lead in voters who voted for Young and a 24-point lead for those who voted for Weber.
The poll was paid for by Bonta’s campaign and would have most likely been kept private without the prominent lead. Assemblyman Bill Quirk of District 20 pulled a similar move hiring his own poll and making it public with leading results. Although when it came down to primaries, Quirk pulled in a tighter race than many expected, with a little less than a five percent lead ahead of Jennifer Ong.
“I can’t comment on those, I’m not really familiar with them, we just know what the results show from the primary election, [earning] 60 percent of the vote in Oakland,” said Guillen.
Guillen went on to mention that Oakland and San Leandro public city workers, like school boards officials and city councilmen, are starting to endorse him. One name he threw out was San Leandro City Councilman Jim Prola, who attended CSU East Bay before heading off to UC Berkeley. Guillen closed his statements with confidence and excitement for the results in November.