It's increasingly looking like Barack Obama has a serious chance at winning Arizona next year, largely because of the weakness of the GOP candidate field in the state.
Arizona voters are closely divided on Obama but lean toward the negative side, with 46% approving of him to 50% who disapprove. Contrary to most places Obama's approval with Democrats (86%) is actually higher than his disapproval with Republicans (84%) is. He's also on positive ground with independents at 49/45. In most states that approval breakdown by party would put Obama in really good shape but there are a lot more GOP voters than Democrats in Arizona and that's why he's still under water.
Obama trails only one Republican- Mitt Romney- in a hypothetical match up in the state. Romney has a 48-44 advantage against him. This makes Arizona the third state in the last month, along with Nevada and Pennsylvania, where we've found Romney as the only Republican who leads Obama. Romney and Mike Huckabee generally post similar numbers against Obama in our national polling but that's because Huckabee posts much larger leads than Romney against Obama in southern states that the GOP will win regardless of who the party's nominee is. Romney is clearly proving to be the stronger candidate in important swing states, meaning that for whatever it's worth he has claim to the 'electability' mantle right now.
Obama leads Huckabee by 2 points at 46-44, Newt Gingrich by 7 at 47-40, Sarah Palin by 11 at 49-38, and Donald Trump by 12 at 48-36. Arizona voters might not like Obama, but they like him better than any of these folks. Huckabee's favorability is a 35/48 spread, Palin's at 32/62, Gingrich is at 26/59, and Trump comes down at 24/66. Particularly noteworthy in Trump's numbers is that even among Republicans only 38% have a favorable opinion of him to 49% with a negative one. We'll have to see if our polling nationally and in other key states over the next few weeks confirms it, but those numbers suggest that the Trump bubble is already starting to burst.
There's been a lot of speculation that Palin might move to Arizona but if she does she can't expect a very neighborly welcome. Only 27% of voters in the state say they'd like her to move there, compared to 57% who say stay away and 16% who don't offer an opinion either way.
Arizona is not likely to be important to whether Obama actually wins or loses reelection. But it's probably a state he'd like to have as a feather in his cap and if the Republicans nominate a weak enough person against him, he might just get it.
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10 comments:
Exciting to see Obama having a chance to win a state I had pretty much written off (because of all of the insane stuff going on there) ...
It's going to be very very interesting to see what your polling looks like post Bin Laden.
Now that Obama has proven himself as the greatest Commander in Chief since at least FDR, it's hard to imagine one of these silly Republicans beating him in a general election.
Obama isn't going to win or lose re-election based on Obama. His fate will be decided by economic conditions. Also how do the Senate numbers look in a Giffords vs Flake matchup? I imagine both are not very well known(Giffords probably has more name ID due to the tragedy earlier this year)
Obama has no chance in hell of winning Arizona. What another dumbass poll by the hacks of daily kos!!!
How about making up polls that show Obama winning Texas and Alabama! Give yourself and the rest false hope!
Just like the driving out of Sadam from Kuwait in the first Gulf did not help Bush Sr. get re-elected, so also is the dead of Osama will not get Obama re-elected. Three months from now, the hike in polls will dive!
Another tiresome anonymous comment by someone who doesn't like what the numbers say.
PPP is very highly-rated by Nate Silver, which is why DKos chose to employ them. But then, Nate did extensive analysis of PPP's polling history and methods. You, however, just offer an anonymous and highly-biased opinion based on nothing at all.
Ooops I meant to say Obama won't win or lose re-election based on Osama
"PPP is very highly-rated by Nate Silver, which is why DKos chose to employ them."
Terrific, I see you've drank the Kool, or should I say KOS, Aid by the gallons. Let me see if I get this straight: 2 of the most radical, left wing idealogues in the blogosphere (Nate Silver & DailyKOS), are used to vouch for the credibility of a pollster well known for "tweaking" their numbers in favor of Dems (PPP).
Let's not kid ourselves: Any reasonable observer, not including left wing zealots, consider PPP a propaganda organ for Dems, ala Media Matters, ThinkProgress, etc. The name of their game is to push a story line and an agenda.
Obama winning AZ. What a joke.
Good grief!!
Wall Street Journal, that Liberal rag ranks PPP about #1 for accuracy!
@Smooth Jazz:
You, sir, are no reasonable observer. Don't let the tea scald you on the way out.
Arizona first voted in 1912. It voted for the winning candidates its first five decades. Record shows that, during the last 100 years, all two-term commanders in chief carried the state at least once: Woodrow Wilson (1912, 1916); Franklin Roosevelt (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944); Dwight Eisenhower (1952, 1956); Richard Nixon (1968, 1972); Ronald Reagan (1980, 1984); Bill Clinton (1996); George W. Bush (2000, 2004). Just five times over the last 25 election cycles did Ariz. not vote with the winner (all of them prevailing Democrats; and two of the elections had an Arizonan as the GOP nominee): 1960, *1964, 1976, 1992, and *2008.
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