In deep blue California, three-term Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer is finding herself in rough seas as she navigates her re-election effort.

According to the most recent Field Poll, Boxer is locked in a tight race with political newcomer, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.

Although Boxer is leading Fiorina by a 3-point margin, Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo says the numbers indicate Boxer’s vulnerability. The same poll reveals 37 percent of those surveyed do not know who Fiorina is. “The fact that she’s doing this well when a third of the voters can’t rate her displays some weakness for Boxer,” DiCamillo remarks. “In previous reelection battles her job performance and personal ratings were more positive,” says DiCamillo of Boxer, “this year, they are more negative than positive.”

Part of Boxer’s problem, say some political observers, is that Boxer is an incumbent at a time when it is not popular to be an elected official. And Carly Fiorina’s campaign is taking full advantage of that by attempting to tie Boxer with the nation’s lagging economy and big government programs spearheaded by the Obama administration.

“Barbara Boxer represents everything that is wrong with the direction that the country is headed right now,” says Julie Soderlund, spokesperson for Carly Fiorina. “She is the most liberal of the liberal, the most extreme.”

Soderlund touts Fiorina’s business experience as something voters will embrace in these times of high unemployment but Boxer’s campaign manager Rose Kapolczynski insists the jobs Fiorina created during her tenure at Hewlett Packard weren’t in United States: “While Carly Fiorina was CEO she laid off thirty thousand workers and while laying off those people created jobs in India, China and Ireland.”

While many Californians are slowly getting to know Fiorina, some groups are rushing to define her.

Brave New Films, a Culver City, California based progressive production company, recently released an internet video focusing on the former Hewlett Packard Chief’s association with the Tea Party. The video shows an image of former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who endorsed her in the Republican Primary, morphing into the face of Fiorina as she reels off the reasons for her endorsement. “She’s pro 2nd amendment, she’s anti-big government, anti-tax and pro development,” says Palin.

The video, dubbed “The Real Carly,” shows footage of multiple Tea Party events and focuses on angry attendees holding signs calling President Obama a communist and the anti-Christ. It then shows Fiorina addressing the press at one such event where she tells reporters those in attendance are “hard working Americans.”

“It’s important to understand [Fiorina’s] values before it gets lost in the barrage of TV ads,” says the video’s creator Robert Greenwald, founder of Brave New Film. Greenwald adds he will be releasing another video in August exposing Fiorina’s pro-life stance to California voters who he believes will not agree with her conservative viewpoint.

Fiorina’s spokesperson calls the video already released “highly misleading,” and “not based on the facts, [using] video from events that Carly never attended and didn’t even happen in California. They have nothing positive to say about Barbara Boxer’s record.”

Abortion rights will surely take center stage in this election and Boxer, an issue on which Boxer and Fiorina share no common ground.

Barbara Boxer champions a woman’s right to choose while Carly Fiorina describes herself as pro-life. That position is a problem for Fiorina, says pollster DiCamillo, who cites that 71% of Californians are pro-choice. “How she would vote on this issue is really the relevant point, adding “it is a vulnerable position for her.”

Fiorina’s vulnerabilities extend beyond the issues, as Boxer is outpacing her by leaps and bounds in fundraising. Currently, Fiorina has just under a million dollars in her war chest, while Barbara Boxer is sitting on $11.3 million.

Senator Boxer can and has called upon the biggest names in the Democratic Party to campaign for her in the Golden State. President Obama has been to California twice so far this year, and Vice President Biden headlined fundraisers on July 8th in Silicon Valley and Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, Fiorina has a few heavy hitters of her own. Her campaign says Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty and Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani will hold fundraisers on her behalf.

However, the amount of cash Boxer has amassed will be hard for Fiorina to surpass without dipping into her own personal wealth, estimated to be anywhere from $27 million to $121 million, according financial disclosures filed with the Senate.

Fiorina’s campaign says they are not worried about money, saying they will “have enough of it to get out her message.”

Meanwhile Boxer’s spokesperson says the message of “being a corporate CEO is quite a handicap,” and may not resonate with voters in November.

Fox News Channel’s Lindsay Stewart contributed to this report.