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Boxer showing rare vulnerability for a California Democrat

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  June 21st, 2010 at 03:39 PM  | 

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Fiorina Boxer

I always hesitate to analyze the California Senate polling because I have strong feelings about it. I live here. I was engaged in the primary. But this is key to determining how big of a wave, if any, Republicans see in the Senate, so I must try.

I’ve given enough time for both parties to settle down after the primaries, so here’s Rasmussen’s latest. Boxer leads Fiorina, but this is close.

It took the longest time before I was even ready to accept that California was going to have a close Senate race this year. I would not be convinced. But now it’s just routine to see polls like this one with Barbara Boxer at 48 to Carly Fiorina’s 43 (MoE 4.5). For a Republican to have even the 28% chance of a lead that Fiorina has in this poll is something I would never have expected when this race began with Chuck DeVore’s announcement in late 2008.

Like we saw in Illinois, California tilts far enough to the left that there is a slim majority in favor of the PPACA, with repeal opposed 50-46. But even so, if that issue, and not one like abortion, dominates the debate this year, Republicans will be on stronger ground than usual. If high unemployment also is key with voters, then Boxer will be more vulnerable still.

Boxer won in 2004 58-38 and in 1998 53-43. While a 5 point deficit would be bad news for a Republican in some states, I think it’s great news for Carly Fiorina in California.

Crossposted from Unlikely Voter

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COMMENTS

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  • Oz

    I really enjoy your MOE posts (even though I always want to give credit to Moe Lane when I see MOE in the text).

    We need to really be genning up as much GOTV in California and Washington as we can. I think that people will be motivated but if they start to see a tide moving West, we can hope that it also kills off some end of day motivation for Dems and is enough to get the GOP excited and out ….

  • http://www.800cart.com Ron Robinson

    I was also encouraged that on Primary Day, John Colbert, the conservative candidate who ran unopposed in CD29 (to face Adam Schiff) racked up 20,000 votes against Schiff’s 28,000.

    Sure Schiff had almost a 1/3 lead, but it’s only 8000-odd votes. We calculate that we only need 28 more unhappy voters in each precinct to cast their vote to elect Colbert. Looking at Schiff’s primary history, we see his electoral support as oddly un-energized (wonder why). But he has big union support and they often cary baseball bats in CA like the old ward bosses.

    Colbert lives in the ‘home’ CD of PROCINCT and we are building an alliance among TEAPAC, the Colbert campaign, PROCINCT and the community to prove several things at once: that with the right automation tools, the right activists, and the right politics, we can win, and win big.

  • dlerley

    Jeeze Louise! Boxer looks pretty cartoonish, or is it just me. Sorry to be so juvenile, but I just can’t stand what’s happening.

  • Adjoran

    to be rid of Boxer. She is a gangrenous lesion on the body politic.

    Giving her the boot might be California’s first small step in setting its house in order. If she is reelected, though, they may as well tumble into the Pacific.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    I hear Carly also has an opinion on that :-)

  • E Pluribus Unum

    Video is a very big tool now, against their only effective defense is censorship. And they can’t quite pull that off.

  • IJB

    That is a *terrible* picture of Carly Fiorina! Can’t we find a better picture than *that*!?! ;p

  • yoyo

    Looks like Sarah Jessica Parker with a buzz cut.

    I cannot remember seeing a face as long as hers.

    MAN-o-MAN.

    Now, back to your regularly scheduled programming….

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    It’s the best one I could find at the size I need.

    Sadly the best *quality* pictures I can find of her are when her hair was just starting to come back in, and I don’t like to use those anymore since they’re out of date and it’s honestly just a distraction.

  • Menlo
  • RedBeard

    Wish I could vote in California. My vote against Babs “No Ma’am” Boxer would be loudly accentuated.

    Boxer is the overage poster child for term limits.

    Go home, Ma’am.

  • SteveLA

    Neil

    Are you seeing any of the issues that the CA Senate race is going to turn on yet? I’m not hearing much in the local media other than some gratuitous slaps at Fiorina for her business background…mostly LA Times by the way.

    I also wonder how the state budget fight over the summer will play in the election, any comments?

  • IJB

    …What most races in 2010 are going to turn on – Are you a vote for, or against, Obama’s agenda? I think side-issues that Boxer will try to bring up, like abortion, probably will have no resonance this year.

    But that’s why I’m probably a little more pessimistic on this race than Neil is – in CA, if it ultimately comes down to the “Obama question”, I think there’s a slight majority in CA that would rather vote for the candidate who’s a vote *for* Obama’s agenda (i.e. Boxer).

    Of course, it’s possible that by the time Fall rolls around, even CA will be anti-Obama (and anti-ObamaCare). But I’ll believe it when I see it…

  • SteveLA

    I

  • SteveLA

    My computer did a funny there, did not mean to post that.

    My thinking is a long and acrimonious argument over the state budget, happens every year, without the cowardly R’s in the assembly giving in stupidly might serve to highlight the differences between the parties and ideologies behind each respectively.

    I’m not holding my breath though.

  • IJB

    Now the *federal budget* mess will impact Boxer and her race.

    But the state budget mess will impact the Brown-Whitman race, not the Boxer race. IMO.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Fiorina is working hard to make sure it turns on unemployment and regulation that makes it harder to create jobs in this state.

    And given the malaise our state’s economy is in, I think it could work.

  • Tbone

    That is why the State’s economy will be the biggest issue.

  • IJB

    I can easily conceive of scenarios where Whitman wins, but Fiorina loses. (Fewer scenarios in the opposite direction…)

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Of course, I think that Whitman coattails were a factor in the primary rout, too.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    I think it’s if, not iff.

    I think Moonbeam’s a much tougher opponent than Boxer is.

  • Tbone

    then pulls the lever for Boxer.

  • Tbone

    He read this and dropped dead.

    Free at last,

    Mrs. Tbone

  • SteveLA

    Neil

    Hard to say which Moonbeam will show up in the race, the early really nutty one, or the one that is the AG. The AG one has proven to a lot less flaky.

  • IJB

    Let’s just say I have an ‘in’ with what Jerry’s done as AG, and while none of it rises to the level of anything obviously untoward, it hasn’t impressed me either. Jerry still caters to the Powers That Be whenever it might further his ends…

  • IJB

    …Are tired of the mess at the state level, but who still approve Obama, might very well do exactly that.

    In CA, I suspect that’s a sizable population.

  • proudgop

    If I were in Carly camp I would start defining herself in positive light ( not saying she isn’t). I like her but she does comes off a bit snotty sometimes. I say this to help the camp they need to make her comes off motherly and down to earth.

    Start getting issue ads with voters talking about their concerns and pivot it that Boxer has been in DC too long and has never worked to bring people together

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    But anyone who gets a (nearly) free pass from Moe is someone I’ve got to agree with EVENTUALLY.

  • http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/ reaganiterepublicanresistance

    They’re in a throw-the-bums out mood as much as anybody… the state has completely crashed and burned economically

    And most of their bums are DEMS, lol

  • jiminga

    and that’s what will give her the edge in CA. She can’t win as a conservative, just somebody right of Boxer.

  • http://www.voteforteri2010.com teridavisnewman

    If I were running in this race instead of the one I’m in, I would play that clip of Boxer and the General on every commercial. It enrages me every time I see it and it shows her arrogance perfectly. I hope Carly is doing this because enraging the voters is what will win the election. Complacent voters stay home–angry ones show up and vote! The voters in my district are FURIOUS and my opponent is hiding from them–he won’t show his face in the district. When his representatives read a letter from him to the gatherings I attend, there is DEAD SILENCE. Other candidate’s letters receive applause but his are met with the sounds of crickets chirping–and that silence speaks very loudly about my chances in November.

  • yankeedoodledandette

    a vote for Carly and/or Meg is like voting for Arnold or Scott Brown.

    Are you people CRAZY? There are many, many Republicans in CA who will vote for neither.

    I am one of them.. Don’t give me any grief over it, this state is already completely bankrupt…it was caused by Dem policies that neither Carly or Meg are going to change (they have neither the conviction or fortitude)…LET THE DEMS OWN IT.

    And thank Arnold (Republican) for Prop 14…that’s EXACTLY the kind of “conservative” representation we need more of in CA.

    /sarc

  • JadedByPolitics

    the idiot leftist AG, so really your point is moot! You are either going to SUCK IT UP and get less then you expect or you will get MORE of the same leftist BS that spouts from CA!

  • MF

    The issue that is by far the most important to most people in this election has to do with jobs and the economy. When the unemployment numbers come out in August, September and October, the ACORN, er, Census takers will no longer be employed. The numbers are going to be TERRIBLE, and it’s going to put a large jolt into the election figures.

    When the unemployment numbers in CA explode, that’s going to make the illegal immigration issue heat up as well. Boxer is on the wrong side of both issues (economy/jobs and illegal immigration enforcement, etc.). We need to be patient on this election. Don’t worry so much about where the numbers are now. Late summer and early fall will show a significant swing toward Fiorina.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens
  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    Yeah, you can go back to Daily Kos with your shilling to elect Democrats.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    RiNOs like you and Scozzafava are all the same.

    You talk big but in the end you back the Democrat.

  • ZZMike

    The problem there is that we, the People, go down the drain. Getting rid of Democrats would send a message.

    The problem with California is that registered Democrats outnumber Republicans and everyone else 4 or 5 to 1.

    Another problem with the governor’s race is that Whitman and Poizner have written all his campaign material.