Meg Whitman

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"We got beat. And, you know, I ran the campaign. I take responsibility for it," Murphy said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "It's a very blue state, and it's getting bluer. As the red, you know, wave, kind of went one way, there was a bit of blue riptide coming the other way." Whitman was able to win GOP and independent votes, he said, but not Democrats, and "in California, if you don't win a lot of Democrats, you don't win." Murphy, who was paid $90,000 a month by Whitman for his strategic advice, had avoided questions about the race since Tuesday's defeat. The voters, he said Sunday, rejected "CEO candidates who were doing kind of a tough-medicine message."