LOS ANGELES (AP) — The national Republican tide that candidates Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina promised would wash over California instead crashed against the eastern flanks of the Sierra Nevada.
Election Day 2010 was a resounding defeat for the GOP in the state that has been turning ever more to the left.
Republicans had promised that a multimillion-dollar voter registration effort and get-out-the vote drive would lead to victory in several races, despite a 13 percentage point voter registration edge held by Democrats.
Instead, Fiorina lost to incumbent Sen. Barbara Boxer by 9 percentage points, and Whitman lost to Jerry Brown by a whopping 12 percentage points after pouring $142 million of her own money into her campaign for governor.
The GOP also lost every other statewide office except attorney general, which remains too close to call.