CA-Gov, CA-Sen: Brown, Boxer Look Strong

[ccharles000]

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (8/9-12, likely voters, no trendlines):

Jerry Brown (D): 29
Gavin Newson (D): 20

Meg Whitman (R): 24
Tom Campbell (R): 19
Steve Poizner (R): 9

Meg Whitman (R): 27
Tom Campbell (R): 21
(MoE: ±5%)

Jerry Brown (D): 42
Meg Whitman (R): 36

Jerry Brown (D): 43
Tom Campbell (R): 35

Jerry Brown (D): 43
Steve Poizner (R): 34

Gavin Newsom (D): 36
Meg Whitman (R): 37

Gavin Newsom (D): 36
Tom Campbell (R): 35

Gavin Newsom (D): 36
Steve Poizner (R): 35
(MoE: ±4%)

Carly Fiorina (R): 29
Chuck DeVore (R): 17
(MoE: ±5%)

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 52
Carly Fiorina (R): 31

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 53
Chuck DeVore (R): 29
(MoE: ±4%)

Research 2000 takes a very thorough look at the big two races in California next year, checking out pretty much every possible permutation left. Although we've seen some rather alarming polls for Democrats in the last few weeks, Democrats seem to be holding their own in California, with ex-Gov. and current AG Jerry Brown holding an appreciable edge in the Governor's race (up 6 on the likeliest GOP opponent, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman) and Sen. Barbara Boxer with 20-point leads on her competition.

San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom doesn't fare as well in head-to-heads -- Whitman edges him out by 1, while he beats the other GOPers by 1 -- and that's reflected in his favorables. He's the only one of the five gubernatorial candidates who's in negative favorability territory, at 40/42 (Brown, by comparison, is at 48/37). While the primaries have been polled extensively, the only previous poll that has looked at the general election in CA-Gov is a Lake Research poll from March that had both Brown and Newsom beating their GOP rivals by margins well outside the MoE, so it seems like some erosion has happened on the governor's side (especially with Newson). With Whitman's endless millions that she's signaled her willingness to spend, this has the potential to get closer as the race goes on.

On the flipside, R2K's numbers give a much wider spread on the Boxer/Fiorina matchup than the recent Rasmussen poll; R2K's numbers on this race are pretty close to what the Field Poll found in March.

Finally, the poll also asks about the fate of a same-sex marriage initiative that may be on the ballot in 2010. The initiative would narrowly lose, 48-47, but that's indicative of some progress, as the same sample voted 51-45 in favor of Proposition 8 (and thus against same-sex marriage) last year, so there's been some improvement just in the last half a year.

http://www.swingstateproject.com/diary/5413/cagov-casen-brown-boxer-look-strong

[Cant trust em]

1. I'm going to cry inside a little bit if Gavin Newsom wins.

I don't think he will, but I won't be happy to say the least.

[David__77]

2. Hmm...

I don't see the marriage equality numbers as "progress." We should remember that polls showed Proposition 8 losing through almost the whole campaign. So I don't think we can reliably gauge progress with just polls.

Brown can win for governor certainly. Not my first choice, but he'll do. Newsom is terrible politically. He lacks skills.

[Cant trust em]

4. Newsom also lacks values. That is unless you consider ambition a value. nt

[rucky]

3. Senator Brown - ooops. Governor Brown

I like the sound of that. Again.

[CountAllVotes]

5. me too!

Governor Brown = a true patriot! :patriot:

:kick:

[NYC_SKP]

6. I'll work my ass off to get Jerry Brown back.

Nothing at all against Gavin Newsom...

:P

[Drunken Irishman]

7. Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

[Cali_Democrat]

8. Impossible

Rasmussen had a CA-Sen poll a few weeks ago that showed how Carly Fiorina was essentially tied with Boxer.

Rasmussen wouldn't bullshit, would he?

[Canuckistanian]

9. Fiorina's dreaming if she thinks she can take Boxer

I can't believe she even got 31%

[saltpoint]

10. Jerry Brown is a fierce competitor. I think he has an advantage in the

Democratic gubernatorial primary that Gavin is not going to be able to overcome.

As for Senator Boxer, I think she'll mow down all comers.

[cascadiance]

11. Jerry can talk about how California should return to his free college education policies too!

Which I think would be a big winner for young folk, especially if we want to compete with Indians for high tech jobs again, who already get their bachelors' degrees subsidized now in addition to the other cost of living, etc. advantages they have now.

[saltpoint]

13. Jerry'll go and git them young folks all riled up, thinkin they oughtta

have more book-learnn'.

Next thing ya know they'll all become libruls and vote for the Democrats!

[Arkana]

14. IT has ruined my opinion of Indian people in general.

Maybe it's because the ones I worked with were type-A taskmaster jerkwads, but very few of the Indian guys I've worked with had any social skills at all.

The guy who took over our department was Indian, and he decided to downsize. Guess who was one of the casualties?

Yes, I realize I'm being just a bit prejudiced.

[cascadiance]

16. I still avoid taking my frustrations out on them. There are some good and bad just like here...

Some of my best friends are Indians. Just like some of my best friends are Pakistanis, Iranians, Turks, and Armenians. That's not to say that there aren't idiots, or jerks amongst them too. There are, just like there are idiots and jerks amongst us citizens too. I try to judge each person individually, and it helps me when I try to work on issues that are contentious sometimes to these other groups of people.

But I will fight hard on systemic problems that screw one group or another.

And we citizens now are being screwed by the H-1B Visa set up, and so many other things that work againts our middle class now. The culprits aren't the Indians, any more than for farm workers or others worried about "illegals" coming from the south. It is those high placed individuals and the businesses they control that are profiteering from their cheaper labor that hire them that I blame.

We have to keep looking between the cracks to make sure we blame the people that are really behind some of our problems. They are very good at making it look like its other people's fault. Look at how good the insurance companies now are with health care reform at using the idiots to blame socialized medicine and everything else but their stealing money away from the system.

I still think one good way to combat things like this health care mess where immigrants are blamed for its expense is to then challenge our legislators to throw in planks that once we have national "health" cards to cover ALL of us citizens, if a non-citizen illegal comes in that can't cover it the way other foreign nationals would be covered, we would treat them with a fund that is funded by the fines levied against illegal employers, forcing them to do what other companies do and pay for their employees' health care amongst other things.

And a free college education is needed for the younger generation to get back in to the mix in our down economy too. We cannot afford for them to go without for many years now while we "recover" and make our nation even more "third world" in its educational levels than it already is.

[Arkana]

12. Wait a minute...I thought Barbara Boxer was in trouble? What with

Carly "I Nearly Killed HP And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt" Fiorina?

[TheKentuckian]

15. Carly The Outsourcer should be scuttled by simply running a decent campain

She's beyond worthless and I loved her last year, everytime she opened her mouth it would sink McCain a little further. I can't imagine how crappy she'd be under the lights full time.

Go Jerry GO!

[cascadiance]

17. And she made some VERY stupid decisions managing HP too...

If she tries to claim that she's a good business administrator, she'll also fail. I knew the way she tried to ramrod selling Ipods in was a stupid one that affected my company's business at the time as well as others, and messed up some of their existing product lines to boot. She's an example of how it takes more than just an MBA and a business manager's career path to sensibly manage a large and complex company like HP.

Not to mention the huge exit package she got when she left, which is so much what Californians won't want to hear about in the coming year or so when they see how much the wealthy CEO's, etc. have raped us to create their little aristocracy.

At least Meg Whitman as a competitor can look tougher as a reasonable manager of a successful business with her work at Ebay, much as I'll disagree with her politically on a lot of stuff.

[quakerboy]

18. Wait.. that cant be

Some person earlier in the evening was just lamenting how we are about to loose 8 senate seats, key among them that Boxer was behind Fiorina.

[TheKentuckian]

20. It will be dfficult to lose more than a net of 2 in the Senate

and we probably will gain a couple in reality. I think handwringers are looking too much at historical trends and not enough at where the battles will be in the Senate.
The Republicans have a ton of retirements and have more that are weakened. The fights will almost all be on their side of the field.

The House could see some significant but far from crippling losses though. People are off base, in my opinion. The danger spots are state houses. Governors are in a world of hurt and we'll have quite a few on the hotseat. We really need to increase focus on trying to hold serve in these gubernatorial races to really maintain our map advantage over the mid-term until demographics choke out the GOP over the next generation.

[David Zephyr]

19. Jerry Brown has my vote, has my time and my heart. I want him back as Governor.

Governor Brown. I can't wait.