The poll comes after Kamala Harris vaulted onto the national stage, drawing attention as one of many potential Democratic candidates for president in 2020. | Getty Many Californians unsure of Kamala Harris, poll says Feinstein's approval rating ticks down.

SACRAMENTO — California Sen. Kamala Harris remains unknown to many residents of her own state despite maintaining a high profile in Washington, while California's senior senator, Dianne Feinstein, has seen her job approval rating tick down, according to a new poll.

Forty-six percent of Californians approve of the job Harris is doing, while 23 percent disapprove, according to a poll released late Wednesday by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California. But 30 percent of Californians – including 20 percent of Democrats – say they don’t know how to rate Harris’ performance, according to the poll, which is the PPIC’s first post-election measure of Harris’ job approval.


Feinstein, who has served in the Senate for 25 years and is expected to seek re-election in 2018, saw her job approval rating among California adults fall seven percentage points from early 2016, to 49 percent. Thirty-two percent of Californians disapprove of the job she is doing.

The poll comes after Harris vaulted onto the national stage, drawing attention as one of many potential Democratic candidates for president in 2020. The former California attorney general is among Democrats expected to attend a gathering of the party’s most prominent politicians at a Center for American Progress conference in May.

The senators represent a liberal-leaning state where President Donald Trump remains deeply unpopular. His job approval rating of 31 percent is in line with his January rating here. Majorities of Californians oppose Trump’s revised travel ban and support allowing undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States.

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The border state has close ties with Mexico and was home to an estimated 2.3 million unauthorized immigrants in 2014, according to the Pew Research Center. Only 15 percent of Californians — and just 36 percent of California Republicans — say undocumented immigrants should be required to leave, according to the poll.

The poll, using live telephone interviews, was conducted March 5-14, surveying 1,706 California adults. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.