June 27, 2017

TO: Interested Parties

FR: Strategies 360 Research
RE: New CA25 Poll Clearly Shows Katie Hill as the Strongest Candidate Against Steve Knight

In this must-win race for Democrats, Katie Hill emerges definitively as the only candidate who can mount a
successful challenge to Steve Knight. Bryan Caforio essentially tracks his 2016 performance, which resulted in
a six-point loss to Steve Knight in a presidential electorate. Voters respond far more powerfully to Hills profile
and candidacy than they do to Caforios1, and Caforio remains highly vulnerable to the same powerful attacks
launched against him last year2.

A new Strategies 360 poll among likely November 2018 voters in Californias 25th Congressional District clearly
highlights four key takeaway points:

1. Katie Hill is the only Democrat in this race who can beat Steve Knight in a head-to-head general
election matchup. In an uninformed initial vote, Hill and Bryan Caforio perform identically against Knight,
despite Caforios name identification advantage. However, while Hill leads Knight following balanced
positive and negative information, Caforio trails him by an eight-point margin.

Initial Vote Post-Message Vote

49 48 48 51
42 43 46 43

Hill Knight Caforio Knight Hill Knight Caforio Knight

2. Only Hill can put together the broad-based coalition needed to win this seat. She far outperforms
Caforio among both Democrats and Independents. Hill and Caforio start out with similar support
across key partisan blocs, but the table below shows that while Hill ultimately performs better among every
group from the far left to the center-right.

Moderate- Liberal-
Liberal
Data from informed vote Conservative Independents Moderate
Democrats
Democrats Republicans

Hill Knight 94-4 88-9 45-47 32-61

Caforio Knight 91-2 78-14 40-51 20-77

Hill Caforio Net +1 +15 +9 +28

Performance
1 See Appendix A for full disclosure of complete profile message text.
2 The poll tested balanced negatives on Hill, Caforio, and Knight. The critiques of Caforio closely followed those found
at: http://www.latimes.com/politics/essential/la-pol-sac-essential-politics-updates-dccc-hits-rep-steve-knight-with-new-
tv-1475866573-htmlstory.html
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-bryan-caforio-legal-cases-steve-knight-20160926-snap-story.html
Strategies 360 | www.strategies360.com
San Diego, CA Seattle, WA Denver, CO
 2

This trend extends to other key constituencies. Caforio manages a 9-point lead against Knight among
women but Hill wins them by double that margin (18 points). Hill outperforms Caforio by a net 6 points
among voters favorable toward Bernie Sanders, and she runs a net 8 points ahead of him in the Santa
Clarita area to which Caforio is a newcomer.

3. While Caforio starts with higher name ID than Hill or Jess Phoenix from his 2016 campaign, it
yields little residual value. This translates into a primary that is up for grabs at the outset and
which Hill leads once voters have more information. Caforio is known by 45% of the likely Nov. 2018
electorate, but only 26% can give him an actual rating (only 31% of Democrats). Overall, he holds a
lukewarm 17-9% favorable-unfavorable rating. Among the sub-sample of voters who participated in one of
the last two primaries, Caforio nets just 21% of the vote in a four-way primary matchup (Hill, Caforio,
Phoenix, Knight), despite having millions of dollars spent on his behalf just six months ago. He leads Hill
by just 9 points3. By the end of the survey, Hill reverses this trend and leads Caforio 25-22% among
primary voters in the four-way matchup.

4. CA25 voters are looking for a different kind of candidate in 2018; someone who speaks
authentically to the daily-life issues and core values of people from Simi Valley to Palmdale. Hills
profile produces a far more favorable result than Caforios (using Caforios own website language4). After
these balanced profiles, Hill leads Knight 49-45% while Caforio trails him 45-50%. Generically, the table
below shows a) that voters are far more likely to support a candidate here with Hills background than
Caforios, and b) the importance they place on support a candidate who grew up in our area and
understands local valuesa statement to which only Katie Hill can lay claim among the Democratic
contenders.

More
If a candidate running for Congress had [the following] trait, please tell me Likely to
whether it would make you more or less likely to support them. Support

Has dedicated their career to serving homeless veterans, families, and seniors 91

Is an expert on creating housing that Californians can afford 79

Grew up in our area and understands local values 78

Will take on the big corporations and millionaires and fight for regular people 71

Has dedicated their career to protecting people from big banks 61

Has dedicated their career to science, the environment, and climate change 60

CONCLUSION
Democrats can beat Steve Knight in 2018, but it will require an aggressive campaign and the right
candidate. Knight currently holds a slight edge on either Bryan Caforio or Katie Hill, but only Hill is able to
reverse that dynamic and pull into a lead once voters have all the information. Katie Hill represents the
best chance to defeat Steve Knight.

3 Jess Phoenix gets 5% of the primary vote. She was not included in the general election messaging and trial heats.
4 http://bryancaforio.com/meet-bryan/
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ABOUT THE POLL

On behalf of the Katie Hill for Congress campaign, Strategies 360 conducted this survey among 401 likely
November 2018 voters in Californias 25th Congressional District. The survey was conducted by live
professional interviewers between June 22 nd and 25th, 2017. A combination of landline and mobile phones
were called to ensure greater coverage of the population sampled.

The margin of error for a survey of 401 interviews is 4.9% at the 95% confidence level. The margin of
error is higher for subsamples. Other sources of error not accounted for by the stated statistical margin of
error include, but are not limited to, question wording, question order, coverage bias and response bias.

The sample for this survey was drawn randomly from a list of registered voters and stratified by city within
the Congressional district. Quotas were assigned to reflect the actual contribution of these areas to the
total electorate. The sample reflects the demographic composition of the likely November 2018 electorate
per data from the U.S. Census Bureau, California Secretary of State, and several distinct voter files. The
sample is 39 percent Democratic, 45 percent Republican, and 16 percent NPP/Other by party
registration.

APPENDIX A: FULL MESSAGE TEXT

[HILL] Katie Hill, a Democrat, is the daughter of a police officer and a nurse who grew up in our area and
still lives with her husband on a small farm in Agua Dulce. She started working at age 12 and put herself
through college and grad school, and dedicated her career to serving homeless veterans, families, and
seniors as the executive director of a statewide housing and services organization. She has balanced a
multi-million dollar budget, overseen a staff of 400 people, passed bipartisan legislation, and helped
create thousands of local jobs. Katie is a new kind of leader, a political outsider dedicated to the priorities
and needs of people and her community, not special interests or divisive party politics.

[CAFORIO] Bryan Caforio, a Democrat raised by two public school teachers, lives in Santa Clarita with
his wife. He has spent his career as an attorney representing regular people, from helping tenants in
need, to taking on banks regarding the housing crisis, to representing whistleblowers who identified waste
and fraud in the system costing taxpayer money. Now he is running for Congress to stand up for
hardworking people by fighting against the extreme special interests that take advantage of the
customers theyre supposed to serve and the politicians who enable them.

[KNIGHT] Steve Knight, a Republican, has dedicated himself to serving our community as a veteran of
both the Army and the police force, and now as our Congressman. He has a reputation as a fierce
advocate for veterans, fiscal responsibility, job creation, and public safety, standing up for small
businesses and fighting for drought relief. In Congress, he will continue to put the safety of our families
and the economic success of our region first, push for less spending and lower taxes, and always fight for
our local values.