Incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer and Republican challenger Carly Fiorina are in a dead heat at 44 percent, according to a Tarrance Group poll that the National Republican Senatorial Committee committee. It’s more confirmation for the GOP that the Democratic incumbent is vulnerable, coming on the heels of last week’s Reuters/Ipsos poll showing Boxer with a mere single-point lead.
Although the former Hewlett Packard executive Fiorina leads 47 to 34 percent among independents and those who don’t state a party preference, Tarrance pollster Dave Sackett notes she needs to do better “and get her ballot strength among ticket-splitters up into the mid-50s,” he writes in the polling memo, which is quoted in The Washington Post’s political blog
The Fix.
Meanwhile, the latest poll from the Public Policy Institute of California gives Fiorina only 37 percent of the independent vote to Boxer’s 36 percent, and shows Boxer with a wider lead in the overall contest, 43 to 38 percent.
Democrats are taking heart from Boxer’s 3-1 cash advantage heading into the home stretch, The Fix reports, but it may not be enough to overcome the GOP’s national momentum, which is surging even in the strongly Democratic Golden State. As a Democratic strategist told The Fix: “I gotta think that even in CA, a liberal career politician is a tough place to be in a change year.”
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