A Survey USA poll released May 2 for the California U.S. Senate race shows that two Democrats are likely to place first and second on June 7. The two Democrats included in the survey are Kamala Harris 29% and Loretta Sanchez 18%. The three Republicans included are Tom Del Beccaro 10%, Ron Unz 8%, Duf Sundheim 7%. The survey did not mention any of the other 29 candidates on the ballot, but 6% said they would vote for someone else. The undecided rate is 22%.

Early voting begins on Monday, May 9.

After the poll was released, Ted Cruz and Donald Kasich dropped out of the Republican race. This probably means that Republican voters will be less likely to turn out to vote in the primary. By contrast, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are still fighting hard for votes in the remaining presidential primaries, including California, which probably means that the Democratic turnout will be high. This variation in likely turnout makes it even more likely that two Democrats will place first and second in June and therefore will be the only choices in November. The backers of the top-two system even removed write-in space from the November ballot for Congress and partisan state office, so November voters who don’t wish to vote for a Democrat will lose their ability to vote for someone they wish to vote for.

The big television networks have traditionally paid for exit polls. On May 6, they canceled exit polls for the Kentucky Democratic presidential primary, and for both major party primaries in California and New Jersey.

Mary Matalin, interviewed on television on May 5, mentioned that she had changed her voter registration from Republican to Libertarian that very day. She lives in Louisiana, a state with partisan registration. See the entire short interview here. She was careful to say that she still may vote Republican in November, but that she wanted to make a public statement of her libertarian views and a statement that she is not a knee-jerk Republican partisan. Thanks to Eric Garris for the link.