Limbaugh Target Sandra Fluke Defeated in California Senate Race

Sandra Fluke failed to parlay her fame as a reproductive-rights activist insulted by Rush Limbaugh into a seat in the California state Senate.

Fluke, a 33-year-old lawyer who lives in West Hollywood, lost to fellow Democrat Ben Allen in the race for a state Senate seat encompassing Los Angeles County coastal areas. She got 39 percent of the vote compared with 61 percent for Allen in incomplete returns, according to the Associated Press.

In the eight-way primary election in June, Allen, a Santa Monica-Malibu school board member, received about 22 percent of the vote to Fluke’s 19 percent. The two highest vote-getters advance to the general election regardless of party in California’s top-two primary system.

Fluke was a law student at Georgetown University in Washington in February 2012 when she addressed the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee about requiring religious-affiliated institutions to include birth control in insurance plans.

She testified that she used contraceptives and that without coverage from Georgetown, a Jesuit institution, it could cost a student like her as much $3,000. Limbaugh told his 13 million listeners that she was asking taxpayers to subsidize her sexual habits.

“She wants to be paid to have sex,” Limbaugh said, calling Fluke a prostitute. He later apologized.

Fluke capitalized on the incident in advertising for her first bid for public office, featuring Limbaugh’s likeness on mailers stating that she had “taken on Rush Limbaugh -- and won.”

Fluke raised $1.2 million in her campaign, compared with $1.1 million for Allen, according to the California secretary of state’s office.

To contact the reporter on this story: James Nash in Los Angeles at jnash24@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net Pete Young