California: No Clear GOP Favorites for Senate, Governor

November 9, 2009 10:32 AM | | Comments (0)

A plurality of Republican voters in California are up in the air about the 2010 Senate, but those who have an opinion are split evenly between GOP candidates Carly Fiorina and Chuck DeVore, according to a USC/Los Angeles Times Poll conducted Oct. 27 through Nov. 3 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.

Forty percent of registered Republicans said they were undecided about whom they want to take on Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer next November. Twenty-seven percent each said they would back former Hewlett-Packard CEO Fiorina, who officially entered the race last week, and Devore, a state assemblyman from Irvine, Calif. who has been campaigning for several months.

Fiorina has a far higher profile in political circles and the media than DeVore given her past leadership of tech titan H-P and a stint as advisor for 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, but that doesn't appear to have trickled down to the average California voter. The pair had some of the lowest name recognition rates among a long list of California politicians and candidates -- 29 percent could identify Fiorina and just 19 percent could identify DeVore.

Voters have a better sense of the GOP field for governor, the USC/Los Angeles Times poll found. In a hypothetical primary match-up, former E-Bay CEO Meg Whitman leads with 35 percent of the vote, former Rep. Tom Campbell comes in second at 27 percent and state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner received 10 percent of the vote. Nearly a quarter -- 23 percent -- of registered Republican voters remained undecided.

All three Republican gubernatorial candidates have positive favorability ratings, but a majority of voters are unable to identify any of them.

President Barack Obama remains popular in the state, with an approval rating of 60 percent compared to 34 percent disapproval, highlighting the challenge facing statewide GOP candidates who risk becoming unelectable in a general election if they stake out a strongly anti-Obama agenda. Fifty-nine percent of voters said they want their senator to strongly or somewhat support Obama's policies.

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Categories: Governor, Senate, USC/Los Angeles Times

Tags: Boxer, California, Campbell, DeVore, Fiorina, Poizner, Whitman

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