CA-Sen: Are Improving GOP Senate Prospects Bad News for California and Carly Fiorina?

The answer is probably unless Carly wishes to write a big check to fund more television advertising.

Democratic incumbents Barbara Boxer in California and Patty Murray in Washington have been the brights spots of late for a national party beginning to assume the fetal position. Both have begun to put some distance between themselves and their Republican challengers in the last two weeks, and are about five or six points ahead on average.

Boxer, in particular, has done so well that national Democrats have argued that the NRSC’s withdrawal of a $1.9 million ad buy for the last week before the Nov. 2 election was a sign that the GOP wants to move the money to other races and is giving up on their candidate, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. Republicans say they merely wanted to give Fiorina flexibility to spend the money around the state and not just in one city.

But a Democratic ad buyer who has watched the race closely said the GOP’s buy in late July locked in about 1200 points – or a guarantee of roughly 12 ad views per person in the target range – over that last week. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee made a similar ad buy at the same time over the summer.

However, rates have gone up since then, the Democrat said, and so giving up the buy means that a repurchase by the GOP would cost more for the same amount of air time or would buy fewer points with the same $1.9 million amount.

It’s possible that Republicans have decided their money would be better spent in a race like West Virginia, which has quickly become very close, with the bet being that their chances are better there and that Fiorina can afford to spend some more of her own fortune in California if she deems it a worthy investment. A Fiorina spokeswoman did not respond to an e-mail Tuesday evening.

If there are increasing chances of a national Republican take over of the United States Senate in races with smaller media markets and where campaign cash will go farther, resources will be redirected away from California. Where a week of statewide television ad buys cost about $3 million, it is obvious that the money will go farther in West Virgina, Delaware, Washington and/or Connecticut.

I have been wondering why the Fiorina campaign has left unanswered the current Boxer television ad and why they have not answered with a television blitz of their own. The answer is: Boxer has the campaign money for the television time buys and Fiorina does not.

Of course, the management of resources is also a strategic decision and a television ad blitz may be forthcoming for Carly. But, if we do not see many television ads soon, it will be understood that Fiorina has decided not to write any more big checks and will make do with what she has on the table. We will see by the end of the week.

This is not to say that Fiorina cannot win this race. Carly can still catch a GOP wave but with Boxer dominating California television, it will be just difficult to do so.