How come Cantwell underperformed so badly? It seems odd she only did 2 points better than Hillary, especially against a sacrificial lamb like Hutchison.
Polarization, as you yourself have said, and as I've pointed out elsewhere. She, Carper, and Feinstein all failed to clear 60%, like they had back in 2012. Chris Murphy in Connecticut fell short of that mark as well.
I mean, Feinstein was facing another Democrat, so that end of the comparison is not exactly parallel to the rest.
That is true, but De Leon was the de facto Republican in this year's senate race in California. Heavily Republican Lassen and Modoc Counties gave him more than 70% of the vote, and he won all of the other Republican counties in Central and Northern California. Yes, there was a turnout differential in those counties between the Senatorial and Gubernatorial races, but that doesn't change the fact that most Republicans who voted in the Senate race did so for De Leon. Feinstein's numbers also were down considerably in the Bay Area and Los Angeles County from what she got in 2012.
Yeah, but no Republican in existence today would have gotten 42% of the vote in Alameda County or Los Angeles County or 36% of the vote in San Francisco. De Leon's overperformance compared to a Republican in liberal areas is why Feinstein did relatively poorly statewide, not his strength in conservative areas, which was not much different from a typical Republican, and thus his strong performance overall is attributable entirely to him being a liberal Democrat rather than a Republican (and therefore doesn't reflect any weakness on Feinstein, at least to the right).
I also expect that if voters thought the Feinstein-de Leon race would be relatively close and competitive as opposed to the pre-election conventional wisdom that it would be a Feinstein blowout in which voting for de Leon was a safe protest vote, fewer conservatives would have voted for de Leon.
