Election Season

A hot topic at the moment and one which will continue to be in the weekly headlines is the race for the California Senate seat. In the race for the Senate seat, Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer is running against Republican Carly Fiorina. With the elections in November quickly approaching the candidates running for senate are watching the election numbers closer than ever. According to a recent poll by the Los Angeles Times published on Saturday, Senator Barbara Boxer, has built a comfortable lead over her opponent, Carly Fiorina. The poll showed that Barbara Boxer was supported by 51 percent of “likely voters”, compared with 43 percent support for Carly Fiorina. Now these numbers are just an estimate as not all of the “likely voters” will vote, and some voters who weren’t “likely voters” may turn out and vote as well. Also, the results of this poll may have been affected by some hard-hitting advertisements which were being aired by the Barbara Boxer campaign. These advertisements showed Carly Fiorina talking about lying off 30,000 workers during her time as head of Hewlett-Packard. This advertisement would certainly shift favor towards the Boxer campaign as every American and Californian would be against the laying off of workers. Although there may have been good reason behind the lay-offs the advertisement, Boxer surely didn’t highlight these as it was an anti-Fiorina add.

Another hot topic is the race for the governor of California between the Republican candidate Meg Whitman and the Democratic candidate, attorney general Jerry Brown. The same poll conducted by the Los Angeles Times that reported the numbers for the Senate race also recorded statistics for the gubernatorial race. According to the poll Jerry Brown has 49 percent support among “likely voters”, compared with 44 percent for Meg Whitman. Meg Whitman invested $119 million of her own money into the race but despite this she is still having trouble winning the support of Californians. This is a rare case as often the candidate who is able to raise and invest he most money into his or her campaign is the one who comes out victorious. The money she has invested in her campaign efforts is an all time record as it shatters the amount invested by Michael R. Bloomberg when he ran for mayor of New York. Although he appears to be ahead of Meg Whitman, Jerry Brown also has problems of his own, as his campaign has been criticized by some Democrats as being low-energy and underfinanced.