A new poll released Tuesday shows a wide swath of Californians are expected to vote in this election, but some voters are concerned that one of the presidential candidates might not accept the results. are.

Presidential elections have historically attracted much higher turnout than off-year elections, and 2024 should be no different. It is expected that regular participants will be selected for the election. Homeowners and people with higher education or income levels.

But polling conducted by the University of California, Berkeley’s Institute for Government Studies and other organizations shows that at least 65% of voters of lower propensity, including renters, voters of color, and people with lower educational backgrounds and income levels, will vote in this election. It is expected that votes will be gathered from voters. -Sponsored by The Times Company.

“These results show that California’s electoral districts are larger and more diverse, and that an increasing proportion of people of color participate in the electoral process,” G. Christina Mora, co-director of the institute, said in a statement. “It shows that we are doing well,” he said. “The influence of young Latinos and Asian Americans appears to be even greater, as voting participation in each presidential election has increased significantly since 2016.”

The UC Berkeley poll was conducted in English and Spanish from Oct. 22 to Oct. 29 among 4,838 California registered voters, most of whom have already voted or are likely to vote. It was considered. Poll director Mark DiCamillo said he expects high turnout again this election, but doubts it will reach the record levels of 2020, when about 18 million Californians voted. Ta.

“The fact that Trump was president really motivated Californians to vote and oust him,” DiCamillo said. “Actually, it was more about Donald Trump than Joe Biden’s power. At least the people of California wanted him out of office.”

Vice President Kamala Harris is the first Californian to run for president on a major party ticket in decades and is almost certain to win the state. However, recent polls by the University of California, Berkeley Lab show that Harris has a 22-point lead over Trump in California, down from Biden’s 29-point lead four years ago. .

“I’ve never seen such enthusiasm,” DiCamillo said.

California voters also face some uncertainty about what will happen after Election Day. In a separate IGS poll released Tuesday, 64% of those surveyed said they did not expect Trump to concede even if Harris won. Two in three California voters said they expected Harris to concede if Trump wins.

Trump’s continued denial of his 2020 loss has raised questions about how he will handle future election results.

Nine out of 10 Harris voters are almost certain that Harris will concede while Trump won’t. Opinions among Trump supporters are more mixed, with 44% believing Trump will concede defeat, 20% saying he won’t, and 36% saying they don’t know. Thirty-two percent of Trump supporters in California believe Harris will concede defeat if she loses, compared to 37% who say she disagrees and 31% who don’t know. Ta.

DiCamillo said that before this election, Berkeley IGS pollsters had never asked voters whether they expected the candidates to accept the election results.

“It wasn’t even an issue,” he said. “But since 2020, it’s become a problem primarily because of Donald Trump.”

Juan Molina, 61, a Santa Ana resident with an “I Voted” sticker on his sleeve, said he doubted President Trump would accept the results if Harris won.

“They’re laying the groundwork to challenge the results,” said Molina, who works as a real estate appraiser. “Trump knows he’s going to lose.”

Molina said she routinely votes early. He came to vote in person at the Orange County Registrar of Voters on Monday because he had work on Tuesday and didn’t have time to meet the crowd.

The Berkeley poll also found that an overwhelming majority of Californians are choosing to mail their ballots or have them mailed in advance of Election Day. Polls show only 14% of Californians vote in person on Election Day. Republicans are more likely to choose to vote in person, 22% compared to just 8% of Democrats.

Republicans have been making a big push to encourage their members to vote early, starting four years ago when President Trump denounced mail-in voting as fraudulent, leading to false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. We are changing our policy. President Trump’s message this year is to make voter turnout “too big to rig.” DiCamillo pointed to a steady increase in mail-in voting.

“People really like voting this way,” he said, noting that early voting means they don’t have to remember everything in the polling place, check election materials, learn how to vote and the candidates. He added that it can be investigated in real time.

About 83% of California’s roughly 27 million adult voters are registered.

Secretary of State Shirley Weber said in her latest report on California voter registration that a record 22.6 million Californians are registered to vote, an increase of 548,211 from four years ago. . 45% of registered voters are Democrats, 25% are Republicans, and 22% are independents. The number of Republicans in the state increased slightly compared to 2020, by about 1 percentage point, according to the Secretary of State’s report.

Times staff writer Angie Orellana Hernandez in Santa Ana contributed to this report.