This is the kind of data that moves political giving. A win for Carly Fiorina over Barbara Boxer in California is not just a pickup of one seat in the United States Senate (possibly the win that gives a majority to the GOP) — but the symbolism of such a win, going into the 2012 elections, would be staggering. Especially when you consider that the Democrats have pulled out all of the stops for Boxer, including campaign events featuring both the President and Vice President.
If you have any doubt about the importance of a final and hard push for Fiorina in the closing days of this campaign season, read this memo from well respected pollster Dave Sackett of the Tarrance Group. Then recommit to doing as much as you can, whether through financial giving or grassroots activism…
MEMORANDUM
DATE: OCTOBER 20, 2010
TO: CARLY FOR CALIFORNIA COMMITTEE, NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE
FROM: DAVE SACKETT, THE TARRANCE GROUP
RE: CALIFORNIA STATEWIDE TRACKING ON US SENATE RACE
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The Tarrance Group is pleased to present the Carly for California Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee with the key findings from a tracking survey of voter attitudes in California. These key findings are based on telephone interviews with N=600 “likely” registered voters throughout the state. Responses to this survey were gathered October 17-19, 2010 and the confidence interval associated with a sample of this type is + 4.1%.
KEY FINDINGS
- The race for the US Senate in California is an actual dead heat, with both Fiorina and Boxer standing right at forty-four percent (44%) of the vote. Six percent (6%) of voters are voting for one of the other candidates, and 5% are undecided.
- From a geographic perspective, Fiorina has broken the fifty percent level in the Sacramento DMA, and now stands with 51% of the vote and a lead of +18 points. She also has opened up a lead among voters in the Los Angeles DMA, despite Boxer’s efforts to outmuscle her with a greater number of gross rating points. Fiorina is also rock solid in the smaller base Republican North country and Central valley markets.
- The big challenge remaining for Fiorina in terms of geography is to establish a stronger beachhead in the San Francisco media market. Fiorina must work to minimize the Boxer advantage among voters in this region of the state so that Boxer cannot come out of this DMA with a big enough plurality to overcome her deficits in Los Angeles and the other major markets.
- Fiorina has a ten point advantage among men, and has really started to close the gap among women voters, but still has some work do among women, particularly 55+ women and Independent women.
- Fiorina is also in solid shape in terms of her partisan intensity, as she stands with better than 80% of the vote among Republicans and is on a trajectory to reach beyond 90% by election day. At the same time, Boxer is down at only seventy-six percent (76%) of the vote among Democrats, and there are 15% of Democrats who indicate they would vote for Fiorina.
- The final battle will be fought among the Decline to State and Independent voters. Fiorina capture forty-seven percent (47%) of the vote among these ticket-splitters and leads by 13 points. However, she needs to improve upon this and get her ballot strength among ticket-splitters up into the mid 50’s.
- Boxer has failed to make Fiorina an unacceptable alternative in the final weeks of the election – as she has always been able to do in the past. Both candidates enter the last 11 days at parity in terms of their image ratings, with both of them at a pure 1:1 favorable to unfavorable ratio.
- It is also important to note that Boxer’s negatives are fully institutionalized to the point where she has never once broken the 45% level in terms of her ballot strength, and there are a “hard” fifty-three percent (53%) of voters who believe it is time for a new person.
CONCLUSIONS / STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATIONS
- The final eleven days of the campaign are entirely about weight of message. The trajectory of the last two weeks of tracking clearly shows that the Fiorina campaign has been pitch perfect in terms of message, and have a message arc that can and will close the deal.
- The Boxer campaign has also shown that they are now past the end of their message arc and do not have a playbook for what to do thematically in the last eleven days. They have already tried to prosecute the messages they believe would render Fiorina unelectable – worst CEO, right-wing extremist, outsourcing, etc – and none of them have performed as they needed them to.
- Boxer’s only option at this point is pure weight of message, particularly in the Los Angeles and San Francisco DMA’s, to try and dominate the focus of the ballot question among the remaining undecided voters on Fiorina enough that they will hesitate and “scatter” to one of the minor party candidates.
At the point in time when the Fiorina campaign is able to generate the weight of message, in the form of gross ratings points, in the San Francisco and Los Angeles markets, to be able to bring focus back onto Boxer, the campaign will be able to convert the remaining Independents and undecided voters that it needs to capture a plurality on election day.
(Formatted pdf version. of this memo is available here.)