CA-Sen: Boxer Up By 6 in Field Poll

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

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 47 (47)

Carly Fiorina (R): 41 (44)

Undecided: 12 (9)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

The Senate half of the Field Poll is out today, giving Barbara Boxer an increased lead over Carly Fiorina from the previous poll in early July. Oddly, though, the lead doesn’t come from gains for either candidate, but from voters moving from Fiorina to “undecided.” To me, that’s pretty suggestive that Boxer’s ad campaign so far (which includes a spot hitting Fiorina for her tenure at HP) has been effective at driving up Fiorina’s negatives.

Compared with the gubernatorial race, where both candidates are playing to the center and courting swing voters, this is one about base agitation, and there’s just a much larger Dem base in California. On top of that, Boxer leads 48-29 among Latinos (a much bigger spread than in the governor’s race, where Meg Whitman has spent a lot on Latino outreach), and even leads 46-40 among independents. Unless Fiorina can find a way to either take a huge lead among indies or to get a lot of Democrats to stay home, she’s not on track to win this.

24 thoughts on “CA-Sen: Boxer Up By 6 in Field Poll”

  1. …is that the change from 47-44 to 47-41, over a THREE-month gap, can be explained by Boxer’s recent barrage of attack ads.

    I think a more accurate “take” is that the race is unchanged and the variance is just statistical noise.

    And that’s plenty good for us.  After all that’s happened to hurt our party for election day, Boxer holding steady and out in front makes me happy.

  2. The DSCC can leave this one alone – Boxer is heading the right way, just like Murray.

    The DSCC needs to spend on the tossup races like NH, IL, CO and WI and on expanding the map to places like NC and LA where the incumbents are very unpopular.

    Go on offense Dems – voters hate Republicans. They just need to be reminded why.

  4. but not surprising.  California is a heavily blue state, and Fiorina is pretty much a conservative, so Boxer is the favorite, despite being the Dem version of a Jim Inhofe.

  5. to the guys at the Chronicle, Fiorina’s first ad is only playing in LA. She might be saving her fire for later, but you wonder if Fiorina is going to let Karl Rove’s group, the Chamber of Commerce do most of the lifting here. Maybe Fiorina should ask Whitman to set up a PAC of her own and use it to saturate the airwaves with anti Boxer/Brown ads. (Rick Scott did that in Florida during the primary.)

    Cash may be at a premium in Fiorinaland, as Boxer has multiple times the cash in the bank. Carly told us her very own self that the campaign will be amply funded through election day. But we’re wondering why Carly’s first — and quite arresting — new TV ad is going LA only?

    Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/…

Comments are closed.