Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Public Policy Polling has a survey of Arizona's attitudes toward Barack Obama.
The numbers:
47% of voters there give Obama good marks for his work so far and an equal 47% express disapproval. His reviews are predictably polarized along party lines with 80% of Democrats but only 17% of Republicans approving of him. Independents split positively 50/42 in his direction.
An interesting takeaway:
Why isn't Arizona trending quite as blue as its neighbors? The first answer is that the Hispanic vote in the state is not as Democratic as it is in Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and California. Exit polls showed Obama winning 56% of their votes in Arizona last year and his approval with them now is 58%. He wins 55-57% of their vote in the hypothetical contests against Romney, Huckabee, and Palin. By comparison Obama averaged winning 70% of the Hispanic vote in the surrounding states that he took last fall.The other reason is quite simply that Arizona is more Republican than those states. There are 16% more Democrats than Republicans in New Mexico, 12% more in California, 8% more in Nevada, and Colorado is split evenly. Arizona had 7% more Republicans than Democrats on election day and we find that number at 5% today. That means Obama has to win by a lot with independents and get a fair amount of crossover votes. But right now the Republicans are actually winning over more Democrats than Obama is their voters, and his leads among independents are slim.
Tags: Barack Obama , Arizona politics , presidential polls