Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) leads her potential 2010 challengers in a new Rasmussen Reports poll. Boxer leads Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) 50 percent to 34 percent and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina (R) 47 percent to 38 percent.
The California senator was viewed favorably by half of the respondents in the poll. Forty-three percent viewed Schwarzenegger favorably, while only 36 percent approve of his job performance as governor.
The Rasmussen survey is similar to a Field Poll released earlier this month. In that poll, Boxer beat Schwarzenegger and Fiorina by large margins but her lead over Fiorina was larger than her lead over the governor – the reverse of the Rasmussen results.
There was a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent in the Rasmussen poll, which surveyed 500 likely California voters.