Talk Elections

New Poll: California Senator by Survey USA on 2010-08-11 (https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/SENATE/2010/polls.php?action=indpoll&id=6320100811019)

Summary: D: 42%, R: 47%, I: 5%, U: 5%

Poll Source URL: Full Poll Details (http://static.cbslocal.com/station/kpix/docs/2010/SurveyUSA_poll_Aug12.pdf)

Another outlier poll that shows Boxer losing and Florina winning.  I beg to differ from them on this.

I'm not buying this, especially when the GOP-leaning polls have shown Boxer leading by a decent margin. SurveyUSA has been showing very, very good numbers for Republicans lately.

I wouldn't be surprised if this is true. Fiorina seems entirely capable of spending her way to victory.

wtf

OH MY GOD HELP THESE HAMBURGERS ARE EATING PEOPLE

SurveyUSA has given us a lot of head-scratchers this year.
Remember the one where they showed Rossi ten points ahead of Murray and was dismissed by both camps?

Or the other showing Emmer in Minnesota with comfortable leads over his Democratic opponents.

I'm not sure if handwaving is the correct response to every single poll that shows distressing figures.

Well, it is Barbara Boxer running for reelection :P

If this was really true, don't you think there would be some GOP internals showing that Florina was leading. In each case where the GOP has been leading the Dems, they had theri own internals backing them up.

Lets see how wrong you are POS showed Johnson closing in on Feingold, Democracy Corps released internals on the Illinois senate races and California race. I think that not an idiot remark.

I was going to get angry after you called me a piece of sh*t, but I think the bold speaks for itself.

I didn't call you one I was talking about the poll and the comment made isn't true, Magadellan release polls for GOP pollster for Senate, they always do

He's referring to Public Opinion Strategies - POS.

Ah, that was what you were referring to. Yes that what I meant should of spelled it out.

Some polls deserve to be handwaved.

Too good to be true.

You'd think they'd change their name if it shortens to that . . .

The most inscrutable thing is that SUSA shows Fiorina winning while Rasmussen says Boxer is. How the hell does that work?

Boxer's loaded too.

Indeed they do, and this poll may well be one of them. But it seems to have become the default response to unpleasant poll-related news here of late.

That tends to be the default response of a partisan in trouble.

It doesn't actually excite me much, the prospect of Fiorina winning.  She's just as terrible as Boxer, with the only advantage being on the issue of health care.  She is still pro-Israel and pro-intervention, and is only tooting the "smaller government" horn because the Democrats are in power.

LOL. What will the usual suspects do now? I mean this ain't Ras.  Are "they" beginning to panic Sam? Btw, I didn't see this poll before pounding out my 60% odds number of a GOP takeover of the House. I mean, assuming the poll is worth a sh**t, when someone like Fiorina in California can be ahead of the seemingly here forever till I die and beyond, Boxer, there is something in the water, no?

The handwriting has been on the wall since the 2009 off-year general election.  The 2008 level of turnout among key Democratic-leaning groups simply isn't there.

This poll may be an outlier - but never mind the House.  With Boxer, Feingold and Murray in close races, Republican control of the Senate is a real possibility (assuming Lieberman jumps ship if Republicans get to 50). 

Better than nothing, as they say. Either of her primary challengers would still have been better, though.

Bada-bing.

What's odd is that Whitman is only leading by one in the same poll. Both races will be close but Whitman has a better shot at winning.

Hmm, Fiorina is doing remarkably well with minorities. 40% with Hispanics, 26% with blacks, leading among Asians, any insights? Or is this an outlier?

Unlike Whitman, who has poured tens of millions of dollars into minority outreach, I'm not aware if Fiorina has done any such thing, and I don't think she has, as she's been 100% focused on running ridiculous ads in her primary until recently and lacks Whitman's dough to flush money down every avenue.

I don't know what to say to this poll, except that SUSA can be really swingy, and that it's economically advantageous for all pollsters to show large swings in political races, as stability is boring for news stations.  Boxer's in for a tough race, but really, even if SUSA is right on the mark here, Fiorina is vulnerable because of the oppo dump that has not come remotely close to materializing against her.  

Even my Republican partisan friends have gotta admit, the hammer has yet to drop.  The dealings with Iran, the destroying of HP, the golden parachute, that's all gotta hit.  So even if Boxer is currently behind, there's no inherent reason to expect Fiorina to remain palatable once the oppo dump occurs.  There's not really the same thing against Boxer, voters already have formed opinions about her, Democrats like her, and Independents are open to a legitimate alternative, but I don't think Fiorina is a a grenade blast close to a legitimate alternative yet.

All Fiorina needs to do is keep running ads with the "call me Senator" bit, though.

** You say "keep running ads" -- has she done this already?  Honest question, would love to see them.

** That's  not what's going to win th is race.  Macaca gaffes can determine races, a woman bristling at being called "mam" is not gonna shift this race 5 points this way or that.  C'mon, the amount of oppo on Carlyfornia is insane, like, at an almost unprecedented level.  She was paid millions of dollars just to go away and quit running HP!  She was fired from the MCain team for being a fool.    "Call me Senator" was a gaffe on Boxer's part, but it's not gonna change the election.  Hell, it's even less relevant than Vitter liking whores

I'm not sure if she's run ads featuring that incident - but it's a good one to run.  There's also the clip of her comparing Michael Steele to the Taliban.  They've got 30 years of oppo on Boxer - statements and votes.

I am not sure individual personalities matter that much anymore, or their bios. It is a very odd election cycle. I mean, think Angle (why bother mentioning Rand when we have Angle?). So the "fact" that Fiorina is superficial, and a bit of a sphinx really, and a crap manager of HP, and vain (without any reason to be), and kind of weird, and disingenuous (well most politicians are that way, so scratch that) and so on, may not matter - much at all. It's all about anger and fear baby.

Boxer's "call me senator" is, I would argue, a more serious offense (this year) because it plays exactly into the narrative that Republicans want to create. Vitter's scandal was humanizing -- and hit long enough ago that the most ugly of wounds have healed. Boxer's statement is the exact opposite -- it plays her up as a privileged class, someone better than these simple voters who will cast ballots this November to determine her fate.

It's not enough alone to topple Boxer, but consider this: There's only one conceivable way Boxer will lose this year, and that's if voters decide "she's been there too long."

Fiorina is carry LA county by 2%. That means that yes, Hispanics and Asians have moved heavily to the GOP if this poll is at all accurate.

That's ridiculous. Schwarzenegger won by 17 points and still lost LA county.

Can someone explain to me why Boxer asking to be called Senator was such a serious offense?

Is it just because she said it to a general? (OMG!!! Dems hate the military!!!)

Having a total lunatic right-winger win in California must be another one of those genius 11 dimensional chess moves that only Obama understands.

I don't know what Survey USA defines as "Greater L.A", but it's not just LA County.  SUSA has 4 regions - Greater LA, Bay Area/Northern Coast, Central Valley and Inland Empire.  Greater LA is supposed to be about 37% of the electorate.  LA County has 27% of the state's population.  So other counties must be included - probably Orange, Ventura and San Diego and who knows what else how far up the coast (I'd include Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo and put coastal counties to the north of that in San Francisco/Northern Coast).  I'd assume San Bernadino and Riverside would be considered "Inland Empire" (probably with Imperial and perhaps a few other counties on the Nevada border), and the Central Valley would start at Kern.

Fiorina's lead in Greater LA is actually down from +5 points (so net -3).   Her lead was also down net 5 in the Inland Empire .  Where Fiorina's lead significantly increased was the Central Valley - from +7 to +21.  She was also net +3 in the Bay Area/Northern Coast - but still trails Boxer significantly up North.

In California?  I know that in the South, or among the armed forces, people use the terms "sir" and "ma'am", but people don't talk like that here.  It's a non-issue except among people who want to be offended.

BTW, I had to laugh at this thread.  Polling all along has shown a close race, and so does this poll.  Get a grip, people.

Yeah, if "greater LA" includes Orange and San Diego, it makes sense that Fiorina would be leading in a tight race.

FYI, Fiorina probably couldn't use the "call me Senator" thing in an ad because video of it is copyrighted by C-SPAN.

Fair use.

C-SPAN can't copyright video of the U.S. Senate, because they don't own it. The federal government does.

Of late? I wasn't around in the summer of '06, but I believe it happened then too.

But, as Vepres pointed out, the crosstabs are ridiculous.

You can't really make any judgments based on one individual crosstab, especially one like "black," which only encompasses 7% of the total sample. You're looking at margins of errors in the double digits.

Which is how we know the poll wasn't made up.  Something is seriously wrong if all the crosstabs come out perfect.

Probably just Orange County. Orange has about 8.5% of the population (3,025,000 million), and about 10% of the state's voters.

Addendum: OK, Greater LA also includes (http://www.surveyusa.com/SUSA_Regional_Definitions_As_Of_081029.htm) Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. SUSA goes on population for weights, not registered, or better still,  likely, voters, which is odd.

A Couple of things to note here.  For starters, the under 35 Demographic is apparently Whitman's best, as she wins them by 5 points (44-39) while holding Brown to roughly even with other voters.  However, this demographic is also Boxer's Best, as she wins it by 2 (45-43) despite losing all other groups by about 6 points.

Minor Candidates are also chewing away at the Democrat's base--almost 10% of Self-identified Democrats are planning to vote 3rd party compared to about 1% of Self-identified Republicans (though this is California, we do usually see above-average Leftist 3rd-party support here)

Also the Maldanado/Newson Numbers seem somewhat inconsistent.  The Republican apparently wins Hispanic voters by 9 points but whites by only 1 (though there are far more SI Republicans undecided than in the other races; it might just be Conservative angst over his role in the budget crisis)

So in summary, these polls suggests that A) Young Voters generally like the Democrats, but still prefer Whitman to Brown, B) Republicans are doing better than ever among Hispanics voters, and look set to run close to even in the non-black Minority vote, C) There is significant disillusionment with the Democratic party among it's base, and D) Hispanics will probably vote for a Hispanic candidate more than a White one.

The collapse of Dem Hispanic support in California will be huge news if it actually transpires.

It reminds me of when Eisenhower got about a third of the black vote in Chicago in 1956, against Adlai "I don't care much about civil rights" Stevenson. That was a big wake up call for the Dems, and they realized that they could no longer get away with excessively catering to the Tory Southern wing of its party, and that it was time to get serious about doing something about Jim Crow and the truncation of the rather fundamental  rights blacks as citizens in general. In this case, I don't know what the Dems would do. Maybe hope it is just a blip in an unusual election year maybe. Or maybe not.

This poll is very silly.  And because, as Lunar pointed out, the oppo dump has not begun the poll is also pretty irrelevant even if an accurate snapshot in time.

Carlyfornia is speaking.

What is interesting is that I haven't seen a single general election ad from Fiorina yet, and she isn't investing huge sums of her money into her campaign. It is pretty bad news for Boxer if she is basically tied or a few points behind her when she hasn't even started to campaign fully yet.

Oh how I wish that were the case. No better way to motivate independent women to turnout for Boxer. You don't understand California politics. That comment does not hurt her here.

Boxer will do much better in the bay area than Angelides.