Poll shows Newsom leading race for California Governor while Villaraigosa and Cox battle for second-place

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- With 10 weeks to go until California voters head to the polls, Democrat Gavin Newsom continues to hold onto a commanding lead in the race for Governor, but it's a tight race for the second spot between Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa and Republican John Cox.

That's according to an exclusive Action News Poll conducted by SurveyUSA released Tuesday.

In the poll of likely voters, 22% said they would vote for Democrat Gavin Newsom, 14% Democrat Antonio Villaraigosa, 11% Republican John Cox, 9% Democrat John Chiang, and 7% Republican Travis Allen. Of the 20 candidate names offered to survey respondents, none of the rest has more than 3% support.

Under California's primary election system, the top two vote-getters will advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.

Compared to our exclusive Action News Poll 12 weeks ago, Newsom is up 3 points, Villaraigosa is up 4 points, and Cox is up 7 points. It comes as more voters decide who they will back in the primary, but there's still plenty of votes to be gained for the candidates. 21% of respondents say they are undecided at this point.

Here's how the poll of likely voters broke down:

• 22% - Gavin Newsom (D)
• 14% - Antonio Villaraigosa (D)
• 11% - John Cox (R)
• 9% - John Chiang (D)
• 7% - Travis Allen (R)
• 3% - Delaine Eastin (D)
• 3% - Robert Newman (R)
• 2% - Yvonne Girard (R)
• 2% - Robert Kleinberger (R)
• 1% - Daniel Amare (R)
• 1% - Brian Domingo (R)
• 1% - Peter Yuan Liu (R)
• 1% - Michael Bracamontes (D)
• 1% - Juan Bribiesca (D)
• 1% - Nickolas Wildstar (L)
• 0% - Akinyemi Agbede (D)
• 0% - Harmesh Kumar (D)
• 0% - Zoltan Istvan (L)
• 0% - Josh Jones (G)
• 0% - James Tran (I)
• 0% - Other
• 21% - Undecided

The poll has a credibility interval of 5 percentage points.

GO IN DEPTH: SurveyUSA Complete Interactive Crosstabs

RACE FOR SENATE

Meanwhile, in the race for the U.S. Senate, Incumbent Democrat Dianne Feinstein is all but certain to advance to the general election, but it's a wide-open race to challenge her.

Feinstein has locked up 31% percent of the vote in our poll, while her closest challenger, Republican Stephen Schrader, has only 7%. Republican Timothy Charles Kalemkarian, Republican Patrick Little, Democrat Kevin De Leon, and Democrat John Melendez each have 5% of the vote.

29% of likely voters in our poll say they haven't yet decided how they will vote in the race for Senate.