Republican congressional candidate Martha McSally’s campaign has released a poll showing her leading Democratic Congressman Ron Barber by 3 percentage point in Southern Arizona’s Congressional District 2.
The survey, done by polling firm OnMessage, shows McSally at 45 percent and Barber at 42 percent. That margin is within the poll’s margin of error of plus/minus 4.9 percent.
McSally spokeswoman Kristen Douglas said in a press release that the poll showed Barber is “in big trouble and voters are ready for a fresh start. The numbers speak for themselves: The more Southern Arizonans know Ron Barber, the less they want him to represent them.”
Barber’s campaign team declined to release internal poll numbers but said the OnMessage poll did not match up with its recent survey numbers.
“Southern Arizonans are going to support Ron Barber in November because we know that he is on our side,” said Barber spokeswoman Ashley Nash-Hahn. “He is not going to vote for a reckless plan to raise taxes on the middle class and strangle Medicare, which is what Martha McSally said she would vote for.”
OnMessage did early polling in the 2012 race between Barber and McSally; Barber narrowly defeated McSally in that contest by about 2,500 votes. In the August 2012 survey, OnMessage showed McSally trailing Barber by 5 percentage points.
You can take a look at the entire poll here, but the polling memo suggests that Barber is being dragged down by the unpopularity of President Barack Obama and the Affordable Care Act:
What’s important to note here is the extent to which the President’s floundering ratings are hurting Barber. We’re dealing with a Congressman who is doing everything he can to convince the voters he’s an independently-minded moderate, yet 85% of voters who disapprove of Barber also disapprove of President Obama, highlighting the extent to which voters undoubtedly connect the two.
Conclusion
Congressman Ron Barber is being forced to deal with the repercussions of his Party’s failures in Washington. The President’s signature legislative accomplishment continues to become more and more unpopular among second district voters and there is no evidence to suggest that trend will change any time soon. As a result voters, especially swing voters, are steadily moving away from Barber. While this race will undoubtedly remain close to the end, national trends and McSally’s efforts have now placed the race in her favor.
This article appears in Apr 24-30, 2014.
Her lead will grow even larger as people start to see what has been done to damage their health care coverage and costs. Americans are hungry to go back to the Constitution and stop all this foolish government attempts to punish the earners.
Six years with no economic or employment improvement is enough. And the money they gave to GM was used to kill Americans….So to speak.
I think you could make a more cogent observation if you went back and got your GED. The constitution is only sacrosanct to gun-toting trigger freaks. If the constitution is so perfect, why has it been amended so many times. BTW, GM has paid back their loan with millions in interest. Seems that economists say that it saved about 500,000 jobs, but you say it killed Americans? Get in your monster pick up truck, turn up the country music, and keep voting for right-wing wackos. If the GOP takes over the senate, it will be a boon for the Dems in 2016 when we’re all reminded of all their screwups during the Bush era.
@Rat T & Russ Roberge: Wow!! So much love?! A sacrosanct Constitution?! Kinda like the bible? Killing Americans? That’s something this president uses drones to do. What’s wrong with country music? It has a more universal following than most types. And does liking country music make one a whacko? Bias and judgments. To bad one judges the other in the name of the people.
Fear and Loathing. None of this crap matters. The Wall St boys and the big companies run America. Guns, God and the killing of unwanted babies is just a distraction to keep the public distracted while the bubble machine keeps collecting your money.
What a shock, a poll by a candidate shows said candidate ahead of other candidate(s)! Does anyone really believe this any of the polling crap?
They’re not completely stupid in CD2 —
Why buy a republican-lite war monger when they can get a REAL republican war monger?
@Harry Simpson, sorry country doesn’t make you a wacko you do. Hating people because of the color of their skin, which if any god they worship, or who they want to have sex with………….now that makes a wacko.
Wow, this much fun and its only April!
@moyla75~I’m not sure I understand; you’re saying the individual is responsible for being a whacko and there are NO outside influences. I also have a hard time understanding how my comments morphed into racial and religious issues. Have you become one of those self inflicted whackos?
I assume that McSally will need a 10 point lead to win. First she needs to withstand that Democrat slime machine. They will try to make her responsible for the Great Depression, Recession and the fact that you can get sun burn in Arizona. This machine did a good job of turning Mitt Romney into an ogre while The Chosen One was lying about “…if you like your plan…” . Pretty effective. Second she will have to deal with the folks who come across the border from Sonora to get SNAP , WIC and a motor voter card. They have done a good job of putting Democrat congressmen in the border districts. Glad to see her ahead…she is smart and thinks for herself unlike her party hack opponent. But it won’t be easy.
Don’t forget about “Chuck Wooten” @ wooten2014.com. That’s Mcsally isn’t even an option in November.
In spite of all the above…watch for Barber to use it for an excuse to run even farther to the right…sucking up to McSally’s military wacko base.
@ Quaking; Oops, looks like another self inflicted whacko got hold of a keyboard. If Barber moves too far right you are under no obligation to vote for him. There is even time to mount an opposing candidate for the primaries, one who sees the military the way you do. Hmmm, maybe the person we need is you,