It took us a while, but the intrepid reporters at California Watch were finally able to confirm this week what many politicos have long suspected.
Beneath the blaring television ads and bazillion-dollar spending sprees that have thus far defined the California governor's race, there is in fact a race for U.S. Senate going on. And it's actually pretty close.
Of course, you might not realize that from reading the news, turning on your television or plugging into the Sactosphere political scene lately.
The race between incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer and her three GOP challengers – Tom Campbell, Chuck DeVore and Carly Fiorina – has largely taken a backseat in the headlines to Meg Whitman, Steve Poizner, Jerry Brown and the mythical money tree that has managed to fuel a record amount of campaign spending a full eight months before Election Day.
This Google Trends graph from the last 12 months tells the story best.
(Note: Google allows you to display only five terms at a time, which is why DeVore and Boxer aren’t on the list. But if you plug them in, their lines look similar to Fiorina’s and Campbell’s).
It’s sort of hard to see, but particularly in news reference volume, the gubernatorial candidates have been trouncing their senatorial counterparts. Even GOP candidate Steve Poizner (the orange line) – who is polling 50 points behind Whitman (red) – has showed up more often than GOP Senate front-runners Campbell (purple) or Fiorina (green).
Fiorina saw a search boost in February, around the same time her now-famous Demon Sheep attack ad went viral, but she quickly dropped off into comparative Google obscurity soon after.
If you're into numbers, here are the numbers of references each gubernatorial candidate turned up last night on Google News:
- Jerry Brown: 3,004
- Steve Poizner: 1,376
- Meg Whitman: 1,566
Now compare that to the Senate candidates:
- Tom Campbell: 519
- Chuck DeVore: 433
- Carly Fiorina: 571
If you add all that up, the Senate candidates took in 1,523 mentions combined – fewer than Whitman or Brown and not many more than Poizner.
So what gives?
Well for one, federal races tend to be much more low-budget than state races here, in large part because federal candidates face strict donation limits to their campaign accounts. Coasting to victory in 2004 cost Boxer a hair less than $16 million. By comparison, Whitman has spent nearly $46 million already, and she has more than seven months to go.
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