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Jerry Brown is heading into tomorrow’s debate with some serious momentum. Five polls in five days have Brown either leading Meg-A-Spending Whitman or in a dead heat. The latest of these polls – this weekend’s LA Times/USC survey – shows Brown up five and leading in two crucial groups: Latino and women voters. Most notably, the poll reveals voters are responding to Brown’s plan to create jobs, giving him a 5-point edge over his opponent.

After failing to woo Californians despite her torrent of cash, Whitman’s team has to be asking themselves: how much more this is going to take?

Brown leads Whitman 49%-44% in poll

Boxer leads Fiorina 51%-43% in Senate race, survey finds. Both Republicans are hampered by voters’ negative impressions of them, poll says.

By Cathleen Decker, Los Angeles Times

Democrat Jerry Brown has moved into a narrow lead over Republican Meg Whitman in their fractious contest for governor, while his party colleague Barbara Boxer has opened a wider margin over GOP nominee Carly Fiorina in the race for U.S. Senate, a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll has found.

The Democratic candidates were benefiting from their party’s dominance in California and the continued popularity here of President Obama, who has retained most of his strength in the state even as he has weakened in other parts of the country. Support for Obama may play a key role in the Senate contest, one of a handful nationally that could determine which party wins control of the chamber.

At the same time, the survey showed, Republicans Whitman and Fiorina have yet to convince crucial groups of voters that their businesswoman backgrounds will translate into government success.

Brown, the former governor and current attorney general, held a 49%-44% advantage among likely voters over Whitman, the billionaire former chief executive at EBay.

Boxer, a three-term incumbent, led Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, by 51%-43% among likely voters in the survey, a joint effort by The Times and the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.

Both Republicans were hamstrung by voters’ negative impressions

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New polling from PPP shows that one major factor in holding Meg Whitman back: Meg Whitman. Her massive spending – now reaching nearly $120 million – has not overcome voters’ antipathy for her effort to buy the governorship. Jerry Brown continues to wage a competitive race despite being outspent, and Democrats are in a strong position to pick up the country’s biggest state in November.

Brown leads in California

Meg Whitman has spent millions and millions of dollars on her campaign for Governor of California but most voters still don’t like her. In large part due to her continuing personal unpopularity she trails Jerry Brown 47-42.

Brown’s lead isn’t much a function of his own popularity- a plurality of voters in the state view him in a negative light with 42% seeing him favorably and 45% unfavorably. Republicans (86%) are much more strong in their dislike of Brown than Democrats (69%) are in their favor and independents split against him by a 30/55 margin as well.

Whitman, however, is even more unpopular. Only 35% of voters view her in a positive light with 49% seeing her negatively. That’s a slight improvement from a 30/50 spread when PPP last polled the race in July but shows Californians still haven’t grown particularly found of her.

Full results here