GOP leaders would love to have one of their own facing Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein on the November ballot. Unless that GOP candidate is Patrick Little, a neo-Nazi from Albany who is running a strong second in a recent poll.

“I am the only America First candidate in California,” Little proclaims on his website. “No more of Feinstein’s Jewish supremacist wars for Israel.”

Aghast at the possibility of being represented by a Senate candidate whose platform calls for “limiting representation of Jews in the government” and making it U.S. policy that the Holocaust “is a Jewish war atrocity propaganda hoax that never happened,” California Republican leaders were quick to denounce Little.

“Mr. Little has never been an active member of our party. I do not know Mr. Little and I am not familiar with his positions,” Matt Fleming, a California Republican Party spokesman, said in a statement. “But in the strongest terms possible, we condemn anti-Semitism and any other form of religious bigotry, just as we do with racism, sexism or anything else that can be construed as a hateful point of view.”

Little, who bills himself on the ballot as a “civil rights advocate,” is well on the way to his 15 minutes of national fame, mostly at the expense of a state Republican Party that hasn’t been able to recruit a serious candidate for one of the nation’s most visible political offices.

The party’s dismay also doesn’t explain how Little, who according to Federal Election Commission records hasn’t reported raising a nickel for his campaign, was backed by 46 percent of Republicans in the poll that SurveyUSA did for a number of California television stations, including KPIX in San Francisco.

The poll put Feinstein way in front with 39 percent support. She was followed by Little at 18 percent, with Los Angeles Democratic state Sen. Kevin de León and San Diego Republican businessman Roque “Rocky” De La Fuente tied for third at 8 percent. The top two finishers in the June 5 primary advance to the fall general election.

De La Fuente, by the way, is also running for the U.S. Senate in Florida’s Aug. 28 GOP primary, after unsuccessfully seeking the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and then becoming the Reform Party nominee for president.

The poll, which was conducted online April 19-23, found Feinstein and Little in a virtual tie, 29 to 28 percent, among Central Valley voters, with Little pulling support from 42 percent of those who say they are conservatives.

The poll of 520 likely voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.

SurveyUSA, which has polled the Senate race three times this year, listed Little among its six leading candidates in the most recent poll because of how he performed in the earlier surveys, Jay Leve, president of SurveyUSA, said in an email. There was one other Republican among the six — De La Fuente.

“For the first time, there is clarity on (Feinstein’s) likely November opponent,” pollsters said in their report on the survey. “It is Republican Patrick Little, who today polls at 18 percent overall, but whose rural coalition is strong enough that he ties Feinstein in California’s Central Valley.”

Little’s platform isn’t all about anti-Semitism. He also calls for nationalizing Google, Twitter “and all other natural monopolies in the IT industry,” and banning all lobbying groups, “except nonprofit lobbies that work to protect the Bill of Rights.”

Expect his campaign to be a topic of discussion — anguished discussion — at this weekend’s state Republican Party convention in San Diego.

— John Wildermuth

Picking winners: Republicans have been more than happy this year to slam Democrats for trying to pick winners and losers in their party primaries.

Programs like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Red to Blue program, which recently named Gil Cisneros of Placentia (Orange County) as a favored candidate in his crowded June 5 primary, are, well, undemocratic, Republicans complain.

But if Democrats are putting their thumbs on the political scale, so are the Republicans, although it’s a much wider scale on the GOP side.

This week, the National Republican Congressional Committee named five California candidates as “contenders” in its Young Gun program, which is designed for candidates who “meet specific goals ... to ensure their campaigns are able to operate effectively.”

But unlike the Democrats, who look to focus party support on a single candidate, Republicans aren’t nearly as eager to thin the herd of GOP candidates.

That’s why the new Republican list includes two candidates, Young Kim and Shawn Nelson, in Orange County’s 39th Congressional District, and three candidates, Rocky Chavez, Diane Harkey and Kristin Gaspar, in the 49th Congressional District, which straddles the line between Orange and San Diego counties.

The seats are now held by Republicans, the 39th by Rep. Ed Royce and the 49th by Rep. Darrell Issa. Both are retiring.

“We have no shortage of compelling, hardworking candidates on our side,” Steve Stivers, the GOP committee chairman, said in a statement. “The (committee) is thrilled to continue supporting these candidates’ campaigns.”

— John Wildermuth