Carly Fiorina Closing In on Barbara Boxer, New Poll Shows
California's junior Sen. Barbara Boxer is on the campaign trail touting her record as a defender of California jobs, but voters aren't necessarily buying it, a new poll shows.
A new Field Poll shows the three-term Democrat is in a statistical dead heat with her Republican challenger, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Meanwhile, surveyed California residents gave Boxer some of the lowest job approval ratings of her career.
Boxer leads Fiorina 47 percent to 44 percent, according to the Field Poll, which has a margin of error of 3.2 percent. Earlier polls, conducted before Fiorina won the Republican primary, put Boxer ahead of Fiorina in a head-to-head matchup, albeit by a single-digit margin.
While millions of Californians are looking for jobs for themselves (the state has the nation's third-highest unemployment rate, at 12.4 percent), only 42 percent said in the Field Poll that Boxer is doing well in her job. Forty-three percent said they disapprove of how Boxer is doing at her job. Among likely voters, 48 percent disapprove and 42 approve.
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The issue of job creation has taken center stage in the California Senate race, the Los Angeles Times reports, with Boxer highlighting the value of her experience as a legislator and her work pushing through President Obama's stimulus. On the campaign trail, the senator is giving specific examples of how the stimulus is helping different parts of California, the L.A. Times reports, such as by providing funding to sustain several dozen police jobs in Fresno, California.
Since the start of the campaign, Boxer has sought to portray Fiorina as a heartless CEO who laid off thousands of workers. Fiorina, meanwhile, is casting Boxer as a "failed senator."
Boxer will get some help from Vice President Joe Biden this week, who is traveling to Silicon Valley today and Los Angeles on Friday to headline fundraisers for the senator.
