Oct. 28--WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer on Wednesday announced endorsements from more that two dozen high-tech executives for her 2010 reelection campaign, including Google chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt, Symantec chairman John Thompson and Adobe co-founder and chairman Charles Geschke.

The Democratic senator is moving to solidify her support in Silicon Valley as she faces a likely challenge by Republican Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard. Although she has not divulged her plans, Fiorina is expected to announce her bid for the Republican Senate nomination next week, taking on GOP state Assemblyman Chuck DeVore.

Others on Boxer's tech endorsement list are Netflix founder Reed Hastings, Applied Materials chairman and CEO Mike Splinter, and Silicon Valley Leadership Group president and CEO Carl Guardino. In April, Boxer rolled out endorsements from Cisco president and CEO John Chambers, venture capitalist John Doerr, and Safra A. Catz, president and CFO of Oracle.

"Their valued advice has helped me work to ensure that our high tech industry remains a vibrant economic engine for our state and nation," Boxer said in a news release Wednesday.

Beth Miller, a spokeswoman for Fiorina, said in a statement that it "comes as no surprise that a career politician like Barbara Boxer can line up some endorsements."

Some of the big names on Boxer's list have close ties to Democrats. Schmidt and Thompson were strong

supporters of Barack Obama's presidential bid (Thompson was reportedly being considered for a Cabinet appointment early this year). And federal campaign records show that Thompson and Geschke have given money to Boxer in the past.

Contact Mike Zapler at 202-662-8921.

-----

To see more of the San Jose Mercury News, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.mercurynews.com.

Copyright (c) 2009, San Jose Mercury News, Calif.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

NASDAQ-NMS:GOOG, NASDAQ-NMS:SYMC, NYSE:HPQ, NASDAQ-NMS:NFLX, NASDAQ-NMS:AMAT, NASDAQ-NMS:CSCO, NASDAQ-NMS:ORCL,

A service of YellowBrix, Inc.