A poll released last night by the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan think tank, shows Sen. Barbara Boxer with 42 percent, seven points ahead of Carly Fiorina’s 35 percent. Seventeen percent remain undecided.
While Boxer is ahead, she remains unpopular in California: only 41 percent approve of her job performance, while 45 percent disapprove.
Among independents, Fiorina has a two-point lead, although a whopping 20 percent remain undecided. Boxer leads among women and Latinos (45 percent and 49 percent respectively to Fiorina’s 31 percent and 19 percent), while Fiorina has a three-point lead among whites (41 percent to Boxer’s 38 percent). Men are about evenly split in their support for the two candidates.
Fiorina press secretary Andrea Saul said that the poll results showed that Boxer’s “vicious, baseless attack ads” on Fiorina were failing to have an impact. “This,” she said, “combined with Boxer’s sky-high disapproval rating and the high number of voters who remain undecided, confirms that the race for California’s U.S. Senate seat remains wide open.”
She also said that the campaign expected “these numbers to shift in the coming weeks.”