Election 2010: Arizona Republican Primary for Senate

Arizona GOP Senate: McCain 48%, Hayworth 41%

hursday, March 18, 2010
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Longtime incumbent John McCain now leads conservative challenger J.D. Hayworth by just seven points in Arizona’s hotly contested Republican Senate Primary race.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of likely Arizona GOP Primary voters shows McCain ahead 48% to 41%. Three percent (3%) favor another candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided.

Following the announcement that Sarah Palin would campaign for his reelection, McCain opened up a 53% to 31% lead over Hayworth in January. The two men were in a near tie in November.

But now Hayworth, a former congressman turned popular local talk radio host, is a formal candidate, and anti-immigration activist Chris Simcox has quit the race and endorsed him. For McCain, the new numbers also show him dropping again below 50%, and incumbents who poll less than 50% at this stage of a campaign are considered potentially vulnerable.

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Hayworth leads by seven points among male primary voters but trails by 23 among women. He edges McCain by five points among party conservatives, but the incumbent holds substantial margins among Republicans who identify themselves as moderates or liberals.

Hayworth has been attacking McCain as not conservative enough, but the senator, who just two years ago was the Republican presidential nominee, has been countering with a number of heavyweight endorsements from the right. Palin will attend a McCain rally in Tucson later this month.

Polling last fall found that 61% of Arizona Republicans felt McCain was out of touch with the party base.

Arizona Republicans will choose their Senate nominee in an August 24 primary, and for now that’s the major battle of this Senate cycle since no major Democrat has announced yet as a candidate.

Twenty-nine percent (29%) of GOP Primary voters have a very favorable opinion of McCain, who has represented Arizona in the Senate since 1987. Fifteen percent (15%) view him very unfavorably.

Hayworth is seen very favorably by 25% and very unfavorably by 15%.

While both candidates are well-known among likely primary voters, Rasmussen Reports considers the number of people with strong opinions more significant than the total favorable/unfavorable numbers at this point in a campaign.

Just 11% of Republicans in the state approve of the job President Obama is doing, while 88% disapprove.

Forty-seven percent (47%) approve of the performance of the state’s GOP governor, Jan Brewer, who is in a tough reelection battle this year. Fifty percent (50%) disapprove. These findings include six percent (6%) who strongly approve of how she’s doing her job and 17% who strongly disapprove.

In 2008, Rasmussen Reports projected nationally that Obama would defeat John McCain by a 52% to 46% margin. Obama won 53% to 46%. Four years earlier, Rasmussen Reports projected the national vote totals for both George W. Bush and John Kerry within half-a-percentage-point.

In Arizona during the 2008 campaign, Rasmussen Reports polling showed McCain winning the state by a 51% to 45% margin. McCain defeated Obama 54% to 45%. In the 2006 Arizona governor’s race, Rasmussen polling showed Janet Napolitano defeating Len Munsil 58% to 37%. Napolitano won 63% to 35%. In the 2006 race for U.S. Senate, Rasmussen polling showed Jon Kyl leading Jim Pederson by nine, 51% to 42%. Kyl won by nine, 53% to 44%.

See all Rasmussen Reports 2008 state results for president, Senate and governor. See 2006 results for Senate and governor. See 2004 state results for president.

Rasmussen Reports also has recently surveyed Senate races in Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Florida, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Ohio, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin. Most show a troubling political environment for Democrats, particularly incumbents.

On the Republican side, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison was hurt by the national political mood in her unsuccessful bid to defeat incumbent Governor Rick Perry for the GOP gubernatorial nomination in Texas.

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