Heading into the final weekend of the California Republican gubernatorial primary, everything is coming up Meg Whitman. The new Field Poll in California (one of the state’s longest running) shows Whitman cruising past Steve Poizner with a 2-1 lead.
The poll shows Whitman ahead by a margin of 51-25, just another in a string of big leads that public pollsters have reported for her in the final days of the race toward the June 8 primary. Concerns among some Republicans — and excitement among Democrats — that Poizner could pull off an upset after polls showed him closing the gap with Whitman several weeks ago appear to be unfounded.
The TPM Poll Average for the race shows Whitman ahead by a margin of 48.4-28.3.
As recently as mid-May, it appeared that Poizner might have overcome Whitman’s epic spending by running to the right of her on social issues and highlighting her connections to Goldman Sachs. Three separate polls released in May showed Poizner trailing Whitman by around 10 points after months of lagging behind by 20 or more.
But Whitman appears to have weathered the storm, whipped up by Poizner’s negative ads and independent expenditures from Democratic-leaning groups who would rather not face the billionaire former eBay chief in the general election. During the primary, Whitman has shown she’s not afraid to spend tens of millions of her own money to secure a victory — Democrats are worried about what those deep pockets could mean for their likely nominee, former Gov. and current state Attorney General Jerry Brown, in the fall.
For now though, Whitman seems poised to capture the nomination she has spent so heavily to win.
