California’s senior U.S. Senator isn’t the popular figure she once was, so say newly-released survey results from the U.C. Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies on Thursday.
Feinstein, who has historically garnered generally-positive support from Californians, has twice found herself having more Californians disapprove of her job performance than approve of it.
Both instances arrived in 2021.
The former San Francisco Mayor, first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992 with former Sen. Barbara Boxer, saw her disapproval sharply increase amongst her core constituency: Democrats.
In December 2017, the Berkeley IGS poll found that only 17 percent of Democrats disapproved of her job performance.
At the end of this April, 29 percent of Democrats responding to the university’s survey disapproved of the senior lawmaker’s performance.
The 12-point swing in disapproval comes as a slight majority – 53 percent – of Democrats approve of her job performance.
Meanwhile, only 28 percent of the ever-growing set of Californians with no party preference approve of Feinstein in the job.
Feinstein’s polling figures truly crumble with voters described as “liberal” and those under the age of 40. Liberals
“Feinstein’s decline among liberals and young voters suggest that core Democratic constituencies are now less likely to view her as an effective advocate,” Berkeley IGS co-director Eric Schickler said in a release.
From December 2017 to April 2021, Feinstein saw her approval among liberals precipitously fall from 70 percent to 47 percent.
Feinstein’s senatorial counterpart, freshly-appointed Sen. Alex Padilla, received generally positive marks, though a sizable plurality of Californians have no opinion of the state’s junior senator.
34 percent of California voters approved of Padilla’s performance after nearly five months. Meanwhile, 20 percent disapproved and 46 percent had no opinion.
