Dianne Feinstein Sets Record With 7.3 Million Votes

California Senator Dianne Feinstein had no serious opposition in her bid for re-election, which is perhaps why she managed to do something that no other Senator has ever done:

Dianne Feinstein is the most popular senator in U.S. history.

If you measure by votes won, that is. The latest, semi-official tally from the California secretary of state reports the Democratic senator won nearly 7.3 million votes on Nov. 6, breaking the previous Senate record held by her colleague, Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer.

Feinstein won 7,297,972 votes on Election Day – 342,244 more votes than Boxer in her 2004 re-election romp.

That number will likely increase as final votes are counted and certified. In terms of percentages, Feinstein walked away with 62% of the vote to her Republican opponents 38%.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, Congress, US Politics, , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. Geek, Esq. says:

    Most popular while not being popular with members of either party, quite a neat trick.

  2. Jeremy says:

    My first reaction to this was along the lines of that Deadspin article about the Grinnell College basketball player. “This is BS, it doesn’t really count.”

    This one might, though.

  3. wr says:

    If I had known, I would have written in Mickey Mouse. I hate voting for Feinstein, and am thrilled that this will probably be my last time doing so…

  4. Tsar Nicholas says:

    It’s sort of like saying that Obama won the most votes in history. Duh, the population is a lot higher than in decades past.

    What Ted Cruz managed to pull off was a lot more impressive than DiFi’s vote tally. For a non-incumbent running in his first major election cycle to win by 17 points is nothing short of amazing. In Texas or otherwise. But for numbingly obvious reasons nobody on the Internet or in the media-academe cabal will be singing the praises of Ted Cruz.

    Concerning DiFi, shizzle, I’ve Quixotically been voting against her for two full decades. Literally. And although getting all the corruption out of L.A. or all the poverty and crime out of the Tenderloin would be a lot more likely than for me to agree with her, well, pretty much about anything, I will give her some credit: she’s a classy lady. Loopy and misguided, yes. But not a Jabroni. DiFi is sort of like the Courvoisier XO of Cali. liberals. As compared, for example, to the Mad Dog 20/20 of Boxer and Pelosi.

  5. Anderson says:

    For a non-incumbent running in his first major election cycle to win by 17 points is nothing short of amazing.

    The GOP candidate in Texas could’ve been a warm pile of dogshit and still won by an absolute majority. Probably not 17 points though.

  6. matt says:

    @Anderson: Truth

  7. Geek, Esq. says:

    @Anderson:

    A warm pile of dog shit has won by such margins in the past three gubernatorial elections in Texas.

  8. Mary G says:

    I had no idea she was even running until I got my sample ballot. She threw up a couple of commercials in the last week of the campaign, but I didn’t get any ads in the mail or online for her reelection bid. I never heard a peep from the Republican challenger. She didn’t even try. I’m kind of surprised she even got 38%.

  9. 11B40 says:

    Greetings:

    Isn’t she the Senatress who said, “If you want this Senate seat, you’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead ass.” ???

  10. An Interested Party says:

    None of this should be surprising…California and Texas are the two largest states, one dominated by Democrats and the other by Republicans…it isn’t a shock that Feinstein would get this many votes in California, or that Cruz or Perry would get as many votes as they did in Texas…oh, and if some people don’t like incumbents, they are certainly free to vote for someone else as an alternative rather than whining…

  11. HarvardLaw92 says:

    @Tsar Nicholas:

    What Ted Cruz managed to pull off was a lot more impressive than DiFi’s vote tally. For a non-incumbent running in his first major election cycle to win by 17 points is nothing short of amazing. In Texas or otherwise.

    What exactly is impressive about a Republican winning a Senate election in Texas?

    For that matter, what’s impressive about a 17 point margin? KBH had never been elected to national office either, and in her first run she posted a margin of 34 points. She subsequently posted margins of 24 points, 33 points and 26 points.

    So you’re telling me that Cruz managed to short her last election performance by 9 points, in Texas, and I’m supposed to be impressed?

    Just another Tea Party loon from the mothership of Tea Party loons.