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Joe Biden headed for historic margin in California, poll shows

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at The Mountain Top Inn and Resort in Warm Springs, Georgia on Oct. 27, 2020. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)

With one week to go before the 2020 campaign ends, California remains on track to hand former Vice President Joe Biden a victory by the largest margin for a Democratic presidential candidate in state history, the final UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies poll indicates.

Biden leads President Trump 65%-29%, the poll finds. That 36-point margin would top the 30-point advantage that Hillary Clinton amassed against Trump in 2016, the previous record for a Democrat. The only larger victory in state history came exactly a century ago, in 1920, when Warren G. Harding, the Republican, beat James Cox, the Democratic candidate, by 42 points.


The likely outcome in California has never been in much doubt. The former vice president consistently has led Trump by huge margins in statewide polls for the past two years. The Republican ticket has never pretended to contest the race in the state, despite California’s large trove of 55 electoral votes, visiting for fundraising but not much else.

A Republican hasn’t carried California in a presidential contest since George H.W. Bush in 1988, and the state hasn’t been competitive in more than a generation.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.