Independent voters have turned against Carly Fiorina over the last two months and the result is Barbara Boxer expanding her lead to 49-40 in the California Senate race after holding just a 45-42 advantage in a PPP poll two months ago.
Fiorina wasn't particularly well liked before the primary when 22% of voters said they had a favorable opinion of her and 30% said they viewed her unfavorably. Now they like her even less. Just 28% of Californians have a positive opinion of her, while 40% see her negatively. That shift has been particularly sharp with independent voters. Her favorability with them has risen from 15% to 20% over the last couple months, but her unfavorability has gone up much more rapidly from 23% to 40%.
As independents have grown to hold a more unfavorable opinion of Fiorina their loyalties in the race have shifted toward Boxer. The incumbent has a 48-38 lead with them now, flipping the 10 point deficit she faced to Fiorina at 42-32 back in May. Beyond that both candidates have pretty solid holds on their party's support- Boxer is up 77-13 with Democrats and Fiorina is up 77-13 with Republicans. To win in a heavily Democratic state like California Fiorina would need to get more crossover support from Democrats than Boxer did from Republicans and also win with independents. Right now neither of those things are happening.
Boxer's probably not completely out of the woods- her numbers still leave something to be desired with more voters disapproving (46%) of her than approve (44%). Even though they're planning to vote for her independents still don't actually like her, with 48% disapproving and only 40% approving. But it appears as though the more independents get to know Fiorina the more of them consider Boxer to be the lesser of two evils.
The trend in Boxer's reelection bids has been for her to look vulnerable early in the cycle and then get safer and safer as the election nears and her Republican opponent turns out not to make that strong of a candidate. We could be seeing that play itself out again this year.
Full results here
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21 comments:
Having a Palin endorsement in the primary doesn't help.
We will see by November that a Palin primary endorsement in other than red, red states will be the kiss of death.
Did you not poll Dianne Feinstein for a separate poll?
"Did you not poll Dianne Feinstein for a separate poll?"
What do you mean?
Great job Senator M'am
The proof will be in election night. Boxer will lose because the sea change effecting the country will be MASSIVE defeats for the Democrats...count on it..
I've gotten ten former Obamabots to NOT vote for the Democrats this year. Still working, have more time left. It will be a FUN election night!
PPP is a Democratic shill machine.
This result is hardly surprising considering how much they want Boxer to win!
Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling has no more credibility than NBC, ABC, or MSNBC.
Tom Jensen has access to the data and the questions asked. They use "robocalls", not live operators. Tom Jensen does NOT have the same level of credibility of the neutral polling firms.
He needs to change his firm's name to Public Policy Democratic Consultants.
PPP is flooding the zone to kick the start the meme that a Palin endorsement should be avoided.
Judging by Anon's last comment, I think we've had some spillover from the reefer post.
Palin or no palin endorsement, if California chooses another dem they totally get the destruction they deserve. No pity, let them burn, and let's legislate them into a cutoff of federal funds for their ignorant social policies and government spending.
Tom Jensen is a slap nut.
His california poll is an outlier.
Dustin, what I meant, was no Dianne Feinstein 2012?
Anonymous:
"They use 'robocalls', not live operators."
Personally I find "robocalls" to be more accurate than live operators.
A lot of people are much more willing to be honest with a nonjudgmental machine than with an live pollster.
FYI everyone Rasmussen showed Boxer leading by seven. This result seems accurate. Like it or not there is no evidence to me that this is an outlier. PPP is one of Nate Silver's best pollsters so your attacks against it are rather stupid. BTW did you guys poll the other statewide races such as LG and AG? Thanks Tom, and I think you should just delete all of the comments from those pissed off teabaggers.
Maybe it is the way PPP samples someone as a independent voters that skews it results. No sane person would think that independents would prefer Boxer.
This seat is such a perennial tease for the GOP. And it's incredibly expensive to compete here.
I would love to see Fiorina make it a race, but losing by 10 with independents really seems like a nail in the coffin. She needs to turn those numbers around soon or we should be spending money elsewhere.
Fiorina is trailing badly in Silicon Valley.
Seems that those who know her the best support her the least.
"A lot of people are much more willing to be honest with a nonjudgmental machine than with an live pollster."
Yep. When referring to racial attitudes, it's called the Bradley Effect, or as Nate Silver recoined it, referring to our marijuana results' variability from live interviewer polls on the subject, the Broadus Effect (after Snoop Dogg's given surname). Social desirability bias is sometimes a problem when respondents know they are talking to real people, but they are more comfortable giving more honest opinions when they feel anonymous.
"BTW did you guys poll the other statewide races such as LG and AG?"
Nope, nor Feinstein in 2012.
"Maybe it is the way PPP samples someone as a independent voters that skews it results."
People call themselves independents, or Democrats, or Republicans. We just report what they say.
"I would love to see Fiorina make it a race, but losing by 10 with independents really seems like a nail in the coffin. She needs to turn those numbers around soon or we should be spending money elsewhere."
As Tom noted, Fiorina was up 10 with indies last time, so there was a quick 20-point swing. There's still time for her to turn it back around, but it's still doubtful she'll swing enough of the Dem vote or hope for depressed turnout (I think the props, spillover from the AZ immigration law, the budget mess and Arnie's unpopularity, etc., will drive turnout up in CA over what it will be in a lot of states, and Dems will benefit from that). So Repubs are lucky they've got a candidate who can self-fund. You don't have to totally give up, but you don't have to invest much into the race.
Hey - can y'all add the hair question next time you poll the TX Gov race?
Independents are like the HP Board of Directors. At first the HP Board of Directors liked Fiorina, then the Board realized that Fiorina was motivated only to promote herself, even at the expense of the company and its employees.
So in 2005 the HP Board fired Fiorina for her arrogance and incompetence, and she has been unable to find a job for 5 years.
Are you guys doing a short week this week? Or do you have results coming Thursday/Friday that are going to be unique? I can't think of what you did poll if you didn't do statewide, DiFi, etc.
"Hey - can y'all add the hair question next time you poll the TX Gov race?"
Haha, no, sorry. We only polled it here, humorously, because of this video that got some discussion a while back:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-10/carly-fiorina-open-mic-watch-her-diss-barbara-boxers-hair/
"Are you guys doing a short week this week? Or do you have results coming Thursday/Friday that are going to be unique? I can't think of what you did poll if you didn't do statewide, DiFi, etc."
We'll have some miscellaneous results tomorrow or the day after. Stay tuned.
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