| Election Name: | 2010 California Attorney General election |
| Country: | California |
| Type: | presidential |
| Ongoing: | no |
| Previous Election: | 2006 California Attorney General election |
| Previous Year: | 2006 |
| Next Election: | 2014 California Attorney General election |
| Next Year: | 2014 |
| Election Date: | November 2, 2010 |
| Image1: | File:Kamala Harris Official Attorney General Photo (cropped).jpg |
| Nominee1: | Kamala Harris |
| Party1: | Democratic Party (United States) |
| Popular Vote1: | 4,442,781 |
| Percentage1: | 46.1% |
| Nominee2: | Steve Cooley |
| Party2: | Republican Party (United States) |
| Popular Vote2: | 4,368,624 |
| Percentage2: | 45.3% |
| Attorney General | |
| Before Election: | Jerry Brown |
| Before Party: | Democratic Party (United States) |
| After Election: | Kamala Harris |
| After Party: | Democratic Party (United States) |
The 2010 California Attorney General election was held on November 2, 2010, to choose the Attorney General of California. The primary election was held on June 8, 2010. Incumbent Attorney General Jerry Brown, a Democrat, had declined to run and instead ran successfully for Governor of California.
The two major candidates were district attorneys from Los Angeles County and San Francisco, Republican Steve Cooley and Democrat Kamala Harris, respectively. On November 24, 2010, Cooley conceded to Harris, giving the Democrats a sweep of statewide executive offices.[1] On November 30, Harris declared victory.[2] Harris was the state's first female attorney general, first African-American attorney general (father from Jamaica), and first Asian American (mother from India) state attorney general when her term began in January 2011. Harris would later go on to be elected as a U.S. senator in 2016 and vice president in 2020.[3] To date, this remains the closest election in Harris's entire career.
For much of the election cycle following the primary election, political analysts theorized early on that the strength of Cooley's name after being twice elected District Attorney in Democratic-Stronghold Los Angeles County. Being viewed as a rising star in the California Republican Party, along with the strength of Meg Whitman's well-funded campaign anchoring the California Republican ticket in 2010 made Steve Cooley the initial favorite by a slight margin to win the election.
Kamala Harris coalesced Democratic support with her opposition to Proposition 8, which Cooley promised to defend in court, opposing the unpopular Proposition 23 and any proposal for an SB 1070-style law in California. Harris benefitted from an endorsement and joint appearance with President Barack Obama at a rally at the University of Southern California before election day. She also focused on promoting her candidacy in Los Angeles County towards the final weeks of the campaign, which promised to make the race competitive.
The election's only debate was held between the two major candidates on October 10, 2010, in a mock courtroom at the UC Davis School of Law. In a moment that was later dubbed by The New York Times in 2024 as "the 47 Seconds That Saved Kamala Harris’s Political Career", Cooley was asked whether he planned to "double-dip" by taking the pension from his position as district attorney in addition to his $150,000 salary as California attorney general. Cooley answered that he would, saying, "I definitely earned whatever pension rights I have, and I will certainly rely upon that to supplement the very low, incredibly low salary that’s paid to the attorney general."[4] The remarks were widely considered to be tone-deaf and detrimental to Cooley's campaign, as the average annual household income in California was approximately $54,280 at the time; Cooley himself later remarked he had made a mistake by answering honestly. The Harris campaign quickly seized on the remarks with an ad depicting the question and answer, followed by text that read, "$150,000 a year isn’t enough?" With the campaign running low on funds, the ads were run exclusively in Los Angeles, which was considered a stronghold for Cooley. The debate answer and subsequent ad campaign was later described as decisive both by journalists and members of both campaigns.
On election night, the headliners on the Republican ticket, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, were soundly defeated by Jerry Brown and Barbara Boxer, with Democrats having a healthy margin to declare victory in every other statewide contest. Abel Maldonado, the incumbent Republican Lieutenant Governor who was defeated in his bid for election, stated that errors of the Whitman and Fiorina campaigns towards the end of the race dragged Republican candidates on the bottom of the ticket down.[5]
The only bright spot statewide for the California Republican Party that night were early returns showing Cooley with a lead of up to eight points, in which he and many news organizations declared victory. However, the next morning, returns from Los Angeles County, which was believed to be a Cooley stronghold, came in strong for Kamala Harris, removing one of Cooley's key advantages and making the race too close to call. Cooley then canceled a victory press conference scheduled for that day.
Los Angeles and San Francisco County reported their returns, which favored Harris, and less than 38,000 votes (45.9% versus 45.7%) [6] separated the candidates statewide at the end of counting that day.
On November 24, 2010, Cooley conceded the race when it was determined that he was going to be unable to overcome the 50,000-vote lead that Harris had built up and maintained during the past week, with a majority of the uncounted ballots coming from counties which Harris won.[7] Having run the closest statewide race of the 2010 cycle in California, Cooley was the top vote-getter of the 2010 Republican ticket,[8] while Harris's victory gave the Democratic Party a clean sweep of all of California's statewide offices - a feat the party had last accomplished in 2002.
| Poll source | Date(s) administered | Sample size | Margin of error | Kamala Harris (D) | Steve Cooley (R) | Other | Undecided | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Suffolk University | October 21–24, 2010 | 600 | ± 4.0% | align=center | 35% | 34% | 5% | 26% | ||
| Los Angeles Times/USC | October 13–20, 2010 | 922 | ± 3.2% | 35% | align=center | 40% | – | – | ||
| David Binder Research | September 23–27, 2010 | 800 | ± 3.5% | align=center | 30% | 27% | 11% | 32% | ||
| Field Poll | September 14–21, 2010 | 599 | ± 4.1% | 31% | align=center | 35% | – | 34% | ||
| Field Poll | June 22 – July 5, 2010 | 357 | ± 5.5% | 34% | align=center | 37% | – | 29% |