Mike Levin Up Big In Key Southern California House Race: Poll

Mike Levin.
Mike Levin is up by 10 points in his bid to flip a key Orange County, California swing congressional district, according to a recent New York Times live poll.
Levin, whose father is Jewish and mother’s family hails from Mexico, garnered 51% support among the 507 potential voters. His Republican opponent, Diane Harkey, managed 41% and 8% of respondents said they were undecided.
Democrats poured resources into the race after incumbent Rep. Darrell Issa, who’s represented the district since 2000, announced his retirement, perhaps sensing a very tough reelection campaign.
Issa narrowly won in 2016 and Hillary Clinton carried the district by 7.5 points. The area, which stretches north from San Diego along the coast, has also been trending Democratic, in part as a reaction to President Trump’s more divisive language and governing style.
Voters in the district also appeared to disapprove of Trump’s economic policies, at a time when Republicans are running on strong growth and low unemployment.
The area also seems to mirror a growing gender gap that is hurting the GOP. Democrats got support from 57% of women and just 44% of men. The poll has a 4.7% margin of error.
EXPLORE ALL THE RACES WITH JEWISH CONGRESSIONAL CANDIDATES IN OUR INTERACTIVE MAP
Contact Ben Fractenberg at [email protected] or on Twitter, @fractenberg
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
- 4
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
In Case You Missed It
-
Fast Forward ADL upgrades 19 colleges’ antisemitism ‘grades,’ as some enact new policies
-
Fast Forward Brown U leaders praise Jewish life on campus as Trump expected to slash $500M
-
Opinion The ADL reversed its support for Trump’s student deportations. You should too
-
Fast Forward Senate rejects Bernie Sanders’ proposal to block some weapons sales to Israel
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.