A California Republican aiming to unseat Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) next year has gotten a boost from conservative Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC).
DeMint announced last night his Senate Conservatives Fund was endorsing state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore over former Hewlett Packard chief Carly Fiorina. The group supports only “rock solid” conservatives, organizers told supporters on a conference call last night as election results came in.
DeVore “will work with me to shake things up,” DeMint said, and “vote the right way …
stand up in our conference meetings and say, ‘Folks this is wrong let’s turn this thing around.'”
DeMint’s fund already has endorsed Republican senate candidates Marco Rubio in Florida and Pat Toomey in Pennsylvania.
He urged supporters to directly donate to the DeVore campaign.
“California is ready for a turn back to freedom,” DeMint said. He said DeVore has a “record straight up the way mine is” and applauded the candidate for flying to Washington to meet him.
The news comes as Fiorina officially entered the race via an editorial in the Orange County Register where she asked “those who expect more from our government to join me in making a change for the better.”
Erick Erickson, editor of RedState.com, also appeared on the call and noted that DeVore served in the Reagan White House. He criticized Fiorina for backing the stimulus and noted recent polling showing both of the candidates are within 10 points of Boxer.
DeMint targeted Boxer in her role as chairman of the Environment and Public Works Committee and said she is “surprisingly vulnerable for a Democrat running in such a blue state.”
He said Boxer would “add to the cost of living” with her climate bill and would “cost Americans a lot of jobs.”
The Republican primary is June 8, 2010.
The group took a snap poll via telephone of the callers on the line and 78 percent said they would back DeVore while just 5 percent said they supported Fiorina. The rest were undecided.
