Alan Cranston won with 56.5% of the vote (4,704,098 votes), ahead of Paul Gann with 37.1% (3,091,671 votes).
The margin between the first two candidates was 19.4 percentage points (1,612,427 votes). The party margin (Republican share minus Democratic share) was a Democratic lead of 19.4 points.
Compared with the previous comparable race in the same area, the party margin moved 22.7 points toward Democrats. The winning party changed.
8,324,012 votes were counted in this race, for 5 candidates or options.
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