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Despite much huffing and puffing from the beltway media and an $8 million injection into Carly Fiorina’s campaign by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, Barbara Boxer has expanded her lead in the U.S, Senate race to 49-41%, according to the latest Field Poll.

Boxer owes her lead to her standing among independent voters, women and Latinos, and also to the fact that non-partisan voters have a very low opinion of Fiorina – 30% favorable versus 51% unfavorable – compared to their view of Boxer, 50-36% favorable.

With her background of having exported 30,000 jobs when she was CEO of Hewlett Packard, and with her stands against choice, for offshore oil drilling and against California’s climate change law, Fiorina has positioned herself squarely to the right of the California mainstream.

The only broad demographic groups where she is ahead more than the survey’s 3.2% margin of error are with Republicans (79-10%) and with voters in Southern California outside of Los Angeles (53-39%) and in the Central Valley (50-38%).

While Boxer’s favorable-to-unfavorable rating is just 48-47%, she is drawing more than eight in 10 Democrats, about half the independents and men and a majority of women. She has nearly two-thirds of the Latinos, plus six in 10 voters in Los Angeles and more than six in 10 voters in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Among those who have already voted by mail – 21% of the survey sample – Boxer leads 48-42%. And because the Field Poll’s sample contained 44% Democrats and 39% Republians – a five-point differential, compared to 13 points in official registration – the so-called “enthusiasm gap” is accounted for.

Moreover, Field’s likely voter sample contains just 51% women, while many pollsters, including last week’s Los Angeles Times/USC Survey, anticipate that women will comprise 53% of the total electorate. If that is accurate, then the Field Poll could actually be understating the vote for Boxer. In addition, Field’s likely voter sample contains 16% Latinos – a proportion that is three percentage points below registration.

The Field Poll interviewed a random sample of 1,501 registered voters, listed in the Secretary of State’s voter file by landline or cell phone, depending on their listing in the official file. From them, Field culled 1,092 likely voters who said they had already voted or who said they were “absolutely certain” to vote and whose voting history – if they were not newly registered – suggested they were likely to vote. Likely voters in Field’s survey constitute 73% of the registered voters who completed interviews.

Interviewing was conducted in English, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and Vietnamese in two waves: Oct 14-19 and Oct 20-26. The margin of error for the overall likely voter sample is +/- 3.2%.

Calbuzz obtained the Field Poll from sources because we have been denied our offer to become paid subscribers.

Are you kidding me? What to make ot Meg Whitman’s statement to Greta Van Susteren of Fox News:  “It breaks my heart, but she should be deported because she forged documents and she lied about her immigration status . . . The law’s the law and we live in a rule of law, it’s important.”

We hate sounding cynical, but the Armies of eMeg have given us good reason to suspect the worst, as in: Could it be that Whitman’s people have concluded they have completely lost the Latino vote (since polls show Whitman drawing well below 30%)?

And so they opted to pander to the right-wing of the Republican Party, which is eager to see Nicky Diaz deported and which was disappointed, not that eMeg sent Nicky packing, but that she didn’t turn her into immigration authorities.

By far the most offensive aspect of Whitman’s performance in the matter, however, is her disgraceful public posture of shedding crocodile tears while blithely throwing Diaz under the bus, all the while whining and wallowing in self-pity about how this is breaking HER heart. Simply shameful.