Buttigieg Ahead of Harris, Newsom in Latest 2028 Democratic Nominee Presidential Poll

A new Emerson College poll released over the weekend finds that former Vice President Kamala Harris’ popularity fell dramatically while California Governor Gavin Newsom rose significantly among Democrat voters in the latest 2028 Democratic nominee Presidential poll.

But former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg currently leads nationally.

According to the poll, which is the first major one to come out following the Los Angeles anti-ICE protests and riots from earlier this month, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg now leads nationally, with 16% of the vote. Harris, who has led most polls since late 2024, is now in second with 13%. Governor Newsom, who had previously only been at around 5%, saw a renewed burst of popularity because of his national profile during the riots opposing President Donald Trump, bringing him to 12%. Rounding out the top 5 were Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, each with 7%. 23% of voters were undecided.

Previously, aggregate polls from mid-June had shown Harris with a 27% average, with Buttigieg  at 15%, AOC at 12%, and Newsom at a dismal 10%. Even worse for Newsom was polling at the beginning of the months, before the riots started to push him up in popularity. Aggregate polls on June 1st had Harris at 24%, Buttigieg at 20%, AOC at 14%, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) at 9%, and Newsom at 6.5%.

For Harris, her indecisiveness and voters taking a closer look at her actions in previous offices with a closer eye is harming her more and more. As many Democrats have said, they are just not that thrilled about her running. As previously mentioned, Newsom is seeing a resurgence now because of his stance during the riots. However, it has yet to be seen if he keeps this momentum going through the rest of his Gubernatorial term, or if it starts to fall once again. Newsom’s latest high-profile action, suing Fox News for $787 million for defamation, has only had a lukewarm response from those in the party, with satirical sites pointing this out with headlines like “Gavin Newsom Sues Gavin Newsom For Ruining His Political Career“.

Newsom goes up, Harris goes down

The two Californian candidates having these drastic roller coaster arcs of popularity stands in contrast with other candidates, especially Buttigieg. In comparison, he has had normal rises and falls in popularity, and has been seen to be slowly gaining in popularity. If Harris and Newsom run, their sporadic bursts of popularity and unpopularity may not bode well with this.

“Looking ahead to next year’s Midterm Election, the Democrats have a slight edge over the Republicans, with independents breaking for the Democratic candidate 37% to 27%,” explained executive director of Emerson College Polling Spencer Kimball. “However, a significant 36% of independents are undecided, so this number is expected to shift.

“In the 2028 Democratic presidential primary, 16% support former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, 13% former Vice President Kamala Harris, 12% California Governor Gavin Newsom, 7% Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez respectively, 5% Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, and 3% New Jersey Senator Cory Booker. Twenty-three percent are undecided.”

While Democratic candidates are currently scattered around, the same can’t be said for the GOP. Like previous polls have shown, Vice President J.D. Vance has a commanding lead in the Emerson poll, with 46% of Republicans backing him to be their nominee for 2028. The next closest are Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, with 12% and 9% respectively.

“On a generic 2028 presidential ballot test, 42% would support the generic Democratic candidate, 42% the Republican, and 16% are undecided,” added Kimball. “Similarly to the generic congressional ballot, independents break for the generic Democrat on the presidential ballot, 37% to 29%, with a significant 34% undecided.”

While polls are still way too early to get any sort of a prediction for 2028 just yet, the polls do show how both of the major candidates from California are by far the most unstable of the candidates when it comes to popularity, swinging up or down in the double digits within weeks of different polls. Newsom and Harris only peak when they have National attention, and for June, it has been Newsom.

“If Gavin Newsom wanted to take on Donald Trump and loves the attention, he has 100 percent gotten it,” noted CNN analyst Harry Enten of a poll a few weeks ago. “Take a look here. Google searches of Gavin Newsom with Donald Trump, get this, up 9,700 percent. More folks are googling Gavin Newsom’s name with Donald Trump than ever before.”

More polls are expected soon, as is the announce by Kamala Harris if she is planning to run in the 2026 California Gubernatorial election.

The Emerson College Polling national survey was conducted June 24-25, 2025. The sample of U.S. active registered voters, n=1,000, has a credibility interval, similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE), of +/- 3 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, education, race, age, party registration, and region based on U.S. Census parameters and voter file data.

Here is the Full Poll.