Governor S got many votes including from conservatives such as myself simply because the Dem candidate was so much worse, we didn't want to vote the better man in an election where many, many candidates were on the ballot include S and McC at the same time.
Why S? Because McC had little money for his campaign and was trailing badly in polls by election day.
Might have been different if the election had had a primary and then a final election where one dem vs one repub was on the ballot.
Normally, we like to vote the better Repub for the primary election and then whatever Repub was running vs the Dem/Socialist (same thing here in Calif) candidate.
But no primaries were done. Primaries would have helped McC a lot.
Not really. Arnold and Tom were very close in the polls until the final week. If everyone who said I like him better but he can't win, had voted for him. He would have won.