Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) defended Hillary Clinton's high unfavorable rating of 56 percent by saying that her own approval ratings regularly skyrocketed during elections from levels as low as 5 percent.
"I've run in so many elections and I've seen my negatives go, literally, from 5 percent to all the way up in the stratosphere," said Boxer in an MSNBC interview on Wednesday afternoon.
A Washington Free Beacon analysis of polling data found that Boxer's negatives have, literally, never come close to the single digits.
Job approval data from the Public Policy Institute of California stretching back to 2002 shows that Boxer's approval rating has been relatively consistent throughout her career—but also that her disapproval rating rarely dipped below 30 percent.
She is correct in stating that her negatives spike during elections.
A poll conducted just before Boxer faced off with Republican Carly Fiorina in 2010 found that 52 percent of likely voters in California disapproved of Boxer. The lowest her disapproval rating dipped in the six previous years, however, was just 36 percent.
Here is how the polling data on Boxer has trended since 1993, according to The Field Poll, which specializes in California politics:
No current senator has negatives in the single digits, according to a Morning Consult poll.
Boxer is not running for reelection in 2016 but regularly appears on the campaign train in support of Clinton's presidential bid.