CA-Gov, CA-Sen: Close Races, But Dem Progress

Field Poll (9/14-21, likely voters, 6/22-7/5 in parentheses):

Jerry Brown (D): 41 (44)

Meg Whitman (R): 41 (43)

Undecided: 18 (13)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

I asked just a few days ago where the heck the Field Poll was, and lo and behold, here they are. Same as most pollsters, they find that nobody’s that into either Jerry Brown or Meg Whitman (44/47 faves for Brown, 40/45 for Whitman). With Meg Whitman’s giant ad blitz canceling out the blue tint of the state, they’re basically fighting to a draw. The one thing keeping Whitman in this is relative strength among Latinos (she trails only 43-40, thanks to a heavy outreach program).

The trendlines actually show Brown losing ground, but these results are actually good, because they seem to punctuate the end of a period where Whitman surged ahead of Brown among all pollsters (that seems to have abruptly come to an end with the most recent PPP, Rasmussen, and SurveyUSA polls) that the Field Poll simply missed thanks to the long lag between polls. Whitman seems to have had two spikes, one in March and one in August; I don’t what to attribute them to, other than perhaps disparities in advertising, but at any rate this is what they look like visually (with smoothing cranked up to “highly sensitive”):

SurveyUSA for KABC-TV (9/19-21, likely voters, 8/31-9/1 in parentheses):

Jerry Brown (D): 46 (40)

Meg Whitman (R): 43 (47)

Other: 8 (9)

Undecided: 3 (4)

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 49 (46)

Carly Fiorina (R): 43 (48)

Other: 6 (5)

Undecided: 2 (1)

(MoE: ±4%)

Here are those SurveyUSA results that I referenced above, a pretty big turnaround from their last set, with both races flipping in favor of the Dems. These contain good news for Barbara Boxer as well as Brown (it looks like the Field Poll Senate results will get released a different date): more support, along with SurveyUSA’s WA-Sen poll this morning, for the premise that a West Coast Firewall(TM) is forming even as new Dem Senate problems keep popping up further east.

SurveyUSA is also tracking two other key races, Lt. Governor and pro-marijuana Prop 19. They find Dem Gavin Newsom leading GOP incumbent Abel Maldonado 44-41 in the LG race, and the pro-pot forces winning, 47-42. These are pretty similar numbers that PPP found in last week’s survey, just released in a couple miscellany posts: they find Newsom leading Maldonado 39-36, and Prop 19 passing 47-38, even suggesting that its presence on the ballot is helping to mellow out the enthusiasm gap that’s a major buzzkill in other states. PPP also finds 46-44 support for gay marriage next time that hits the ballot, and 42-16 support for nonpartisan congressional redistricting in Prop 20.