Ignore the Right-Wing Media Hype – There’s No Chance Condoleeza Rice Will Be California’s Next Senator

Rice
Rice
Right wing media outlets were giddy last week after the Field Poll found that, in aggregate, former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, now a Stanford professor and fellow at the Hoover Institution, had more support than anyone else who might consider running for the California U.S. Senate seat now held by Democrat Barbara Boxer, who is retiring. Headlines like this in Reuters and other legit sources caused the stir: “Condoleezza Rice Leads Potential 2016 U.S. Senate Hopefuls in California.”

Reuters is, of course, technically correct. Field asked California voters to weigh in on 18 possible candidates to replace Boxer. From the 18 names on the list, 49 percent of respondents chose Rice and 46 percent chose Democrat Kamala Harris, the state Attorney General, who is the only announced candidate so far.

Wow! Rice is winning by 3 points — or at least that’s the way right-wing blogs like Breitbart.com, Tucker Carlson’s Daily Talker and Red Alert Politics spun the poll results. In reality, the suggestion that Condoleeza Rice could win the 2016 Senate race in California is nonsense.

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