United States Senate election in California, 2010

Candidates

Boxer

In 2009, Boxer was criticized for correcting a general who called her "ma'am". Brigadier General Michael Walsh was testifying on the Louisiana coastal restoration process in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and answered Boxer's query with "ma'am" when Boxer interrupted him. "Do me a favor," Boxer said. "can you say 'senator' instead of 'ma'am?'" "Yes, ma'am," Walsh interjected. "It's just a thing, I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd appreciate it. Thank you," she said. The Army's guide to protocol instructs service members to call members of the U.S. Senate "sir", "ma'am" or "senator". Fiorina used this incident prominently in campaign ads, as did David Zucker, who directed a humorous commercial for RightChange.com titled 'Call Me Senator'.

Candidates

Fiorina

In February 2010, Carly Fiorina put out a campaign ad attacking Republican rival Tom Campbell featuring a "demon sheep", creating international, mostly negative, publicity.

The Los Angeles Times research of public records indicated Fiorina had failed to vote in most elections. Fiorina responded by saying, "I'm a lifelong registered Republican but I haven't always voted, and I will provide no excuse for it. You know, people die for the right to vote. And there are many, many Californians and Americans who exercise that civic duty on a regular basis. I didn't. Shame on me."

Campbell

Former State Senator and California Secretary of State Bruce McPherson alleged that during a telephone call with Carly Fiorina's campaign manager, Marty Wilson, Wilson expressed surprise that McPherson was endorsing the candidacy of Tom Campbell, and called him an anti-Semite. Subsequently, Wilson strongly denied having made that charge against Campbell, thus leading to a controversy for the Fiorina campaign, where the credibility of long-time Sacramento political operative Marty Wilson was called into a comparison with that of Bruce McPherson.

On March 5, the three principal Republican primary candidates, Campbell, DeVore, and Fiorina participated in a live, on-air debate, which was broadcast on KTKZ in Sacramento. The debate was called by Campbell, in order to respond to accusations of "anti-Semitism," and otherwise being unfriendly to the interests of Israel.

Campbell had also been criticized for having accepted campaign contributions (during his 2000 Senate race), from then-University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian. On March 2, 2006, Al-Arian entered a guilty plea to a charge of conspiracy to help the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, a "specially designated terrorist" organization; he was sentenced to 57 months in prison, and ordered deported following his prison term. The usually subdued Tom Campbell responded very strongly to the accusations coming out of the Fiorina campaign, saying, "I called for this debate today so that both of my opponents can bring up absolutely any charge they want. Air it, and let me respond to it. But there’s no place for calling me anti-Semitic, then denying it. That whispering campaign, that 'silent slander,' stops today."

A dispute had been triggered as well by Campbell's 2002 letter in defense of Al-Arian. Campbell said he had not been aware of the charges against Al-Arian when he wrote his January 21, 2002, letter to USF's president, asking USF not to discipline Al-Arian.

He also said he had not been aware that Al-Arian had said, in a speech discussed in an O'Reilly interview before Campbell wrote his letter: "Jihad is our path. Victory to Islam. Death to Israel." Campbell said:

I did not hear, I did not read, I was not aware of statements Sami Al-Arian had made relative to Israel. And I would not have written the letter had I known about those. ... To say 'Death to Israel' is abhorrent, it's horrible.

Campbell said he was sorry he wrote the letter, adding that he did not know about the statements at the time. He said he should have researched that matter more thoroughly, and he would have known.

Campbell had initially maintained that Al-Arian had never contributed to Campbell's 2000 Senate campaign. That turned out to be untrue. Campbell also initially said his letter defending Al-Arian was sent before the O'Reilly 2001 television broadcast where Al-Arian admitted saying "death to Israel," but that also turned out to be incorrect. Campbell said his misstatements were the result of the events having taken place years prior.

Candidates

Candidates

The following were certified by the California Secretary of State as candidates in the primary election for senator.

Campaign

Boxer criticized Fiorina's choice "to become a CEO, lay off 30,000 workers, ship jobs overseas [and] have two yachts." A spokesman for Fiorina responded that the Fiorinas were a two-yacht family because they spent time in both California and Washington, D.C. Boxer also claimed that Fiorina "skirted the law" by selling equipment to Iran during her tenure as HP's CEO, also claiming that the equipment may have ended up in the hands of the Iranian military.

Debates

The only debate took place on September 1 at Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga. It was sponsored by San Francisco Chronicle, KTVU, and KQED.

Results

Despite the last poll before the election showed Fiorina only trailing by 4 points, on election night Boxer defeated Fiorina by a Ten point margin, and around a one million vote majority. Boxer's victory was notable, because although the 2010 Midterms was a good year for Republicans, and despite close polls, Boxer still won in a landslide. Boxer as expected performed extremely well in Los Angeles County, and the San Francisco Bay Area. Boxer was declared the winner shortly after the polls closed. Fiorina conceded defeat to Boxer at 11:38 P.M.

Results by county

Results from the Secretary of State of California.