Is Dianne Feinstein Vulnerable?

By Steven Shepard  //  September 16, 2011 | 5:17 a.m.
Updated: September 19, 2011 | 8:25 a.m.

More voters are now poised to vote against longtime Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., if she runs in 2012 than are inclined to re-elect her, according to a new Field Poll released early Friday that also shows Feinstein's approval rating -- and Congress' as a whole -- at a low-water mark.

Just 41 percent of voters are inclined to re-elect Feinstein, while 44 percent are not. That is down from 43 percent who were inclined to re-elect her in June, 46 percent in March, and it is well below the 52 percent who were inclined to re-elect her at this stage (August 2005) of her most recent campaign.

Feinstein's approval ratings are at the lowest point of her nearly 19-year tenure in the Senate. Just 41 percent of voters approve of the job she is doing, while 39 percent disapprove. That is down from a 46-percent approval rating in June.

Feinstein's fall comes amid a widespread and intense distrust of Congress as a whole. Only nine percent of voters approve of Congress' job performance, a new low. Sen. Barbara Boxer's, D-Calif., 39-percent approval rating is also a new low.

The drop in Feinstein's re-elect percentage coincides with a steep fall in President Obama's poll numbers in the Golden State.

Potentially making matters worse for Feinstein, the treasurer of her campaign -- in addition to the campaigns of other prominent California Democrats -- was arrested earlier this month for fraud. The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that Feinstein told her staff that her account was among those that were allegedly "wiped out" by Kinde Durkee, but it was unclear how much of the $5.2 million in Feinstein's campaign coffers is missing. Despite her declining poll numbers and an uncertain finance situation, no major Republican candidate has come forward to challenge Feinstein. A number of GOP incumbents in Congress are threatened by California's new congressional map, which pairs some of them with other incumbents or redraws the lines to place them in unfavorable districts. But considering the unpopularity of Congress and congressional Republicans (19 percent approval rating), Feinstein's most credible GOP challenger may not come from Capitol Hill. The Field Poll was conducted Sept. 1-12, surveying 1,001 registered voters. The margin of error is +/- 3.1 percent. All questions other than Feinstein's re-election percentage were asked of a split sample of 481 registered voters; those results carry a margin of error of +/- 4.5 percent.

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