Wednesday, February 2, 2011

AZ Poll: Obama Beats Palin

Posted By on Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 10:54 AM

Public Policy Polling follows up its survey of Sen. Jon Kyl's fortunes with a look at how President Barack Obama would fare against GOP challengers in Arizona in 2012—and Obama beats Sarah Palin.

No wonder state lawmakers are pushing the birther bill.

Here's a tidbit from PPP's release:

In case there was any doubt what Arizona voters thought about the respective reactions of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin to last month's shooting consider this: Obama leads Palin by 8 points in a hypothetical contest in the state that's only fallen into the Democratic column for President one time since 1948.

A majority of voters still disapprove of the job Obama is doing there with 45% giving him good marks and 51% expressing unhappiness with his performance. But they don't dislike him nearly as much as they do Palin. 57% have an unfavorable opinion of her to only 39% who rate her positively. Her numbers with independents are even worse than her overall ones as 67% of them say they don't like her while only 32% give her good reviews.

If the Republican nominee is someone other than Palin Obama would still have a better chance at winning the state than his party has had since the 90s, but he would start out at a disadvantage against either Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee. Romney is the strongest of the Republicans, leading Obama by a 49-43 margin. That six point spread is closer than what the state saw in 2004 or 2008 and comparable to George W. Bush's margin of victory over Al Gore there in 2000, the last time the state was remotely competitive. Obama comes a little bit closer against Huckabee, trailing by a 48-44 spread.

Read the whole thing here.