Barbara Boxer won with 47.9% of the vote (5,173,467 votes), ahead of Bruce Herschensohn with 43.0% (4,644,182 votes).
The margin between the first two candidates was 4.9 percentage points (529,285 votes). The party margin (Republican share minus Democratic share) was a Democratic lead of 4.9 points.
Compared with the previous comparable race in the same area, the party margin moved 13.7 points toward Democrats. The winning party changed.
10,799,703 votes were counted in this race, for 5 candidates or options.
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