Public Policy Polling (PDF File). 7/23-25. Registered Voters. MoE 3.95%.
The candidates for Governor are Republican Meg Whitman and Democrat Jerry Brown. If the election was today, who would you vote for?
Jerry Brown (D) 46
Meg Whitman (R) 40
Undecided 14
Anyone in California who has endured the endless television ads from the GOP nominee knows the extent to which Meg Whitman has tried to buy the California Governor's Mansion.
Well, according to PPP, six months and over one hundred million dollars later, she isn't making the grade.
Worse yet, she is getting beat by six points by someone who has probably spent less on his entire campaign than Whitman has spent on post-it notes and highlighters.
The toplines of the PPP ought to be creating anxiety for the Whitman campaign. After the most lavishly financed campaign in modern history, which is almost certainly in the eight-figure range at this point, she is still down by six points.
And any upside might be hard to come by down the line, too.
Whitman has upside-down favorability, with a spread that is far worse (30/50) than Jerry Brown's (41/43). What's more, the negative opinion of Whitman cuts across party and ideological lines. Most starkly, she is reviled by Independents, with a 21/61 favorability spread. She even gets negative reviews from about one-quarter of the Republicans surveyed, intimating that the wounds of the primary with Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner have not yet healed.
Furthermore, PPP was savvy enough to ask about Whitman's profligate spending. They did so indirectly, asking voters if they thought there ought to be limits on how much a candidate can donate to their own campaign. Despite there being some clear constitutional issues with that, as a political matter voters in California would like to see it happen. A total of 52 percent favored such limits, with only 33 percent opposed. Even Whitman's own base (conservatives) were not unilaterally opposed, with 37 percent in favor and 42 percent opposed.
Meg Whitman, it is estimated, is already around the $100-110 million mark in terms of funds raised. A total of 90 percent of it has come from her own pocket, and that could easily generate a lasting dilemma for the Republican nominee:
San Francisco State political science professor Graeme Boushey said the money Whitman is spending to promote herself could rub some voters the wrong way, especially in this year of recession and budget cuts.
“It is a staggering amount of money,” said Boushe. “It is appealing to imagine what Meg Whitman could do for California if she chose simply to have turned her campaign contributions toward other things on behalf of the state.”
Some examples: $100 million could be used to prevent the layoffs of about 1,700 California teachers. Or it could buy 40 million school lunches for impoverished children. Or it could hire nearly 1,400 police officers or build homes for more than 14,000 families in earthquake ravaged Haiti.
On a more frivolous note, if you like cars, $100 million could buy you about 5,000 brand new Honda Accords.
At one point earlier in the campaign, Whitman had spent more on campaign travel (mostly on private jets) than Brown had spent on his entire campaign.
Make no mistake: Whitman is in deep trouble. Her only path to victory is probably going super-negative on Brown on the air. The only problem with that strategy is that she has to be heading close to diminishing returns with voters vis-a-vis her air campaign. This is the necessary side-effect of carpet-bombing the airwaves for months on end.
Why isn't the race a Democratic blowout, then?
Two things seem to indicate why Whitman has kept it close. For one thing, the climate isn't wonderful (even in California). Furthermore, it is hard to find a lot of people genuinely enthused by Jerry Brown (even his own Democratic base only gives him 63 percent favorability).
That said, it is getting a bit more difficult to find a clear roadmap for Whitman's election. Clearly, her campaign, based almost exclusively on buying the election, has hit a wall with voters. And her only solution, spending even more cash on the campaign, doesn't seem likely to change the calculus.