Two polls released since last Tuesday’s primary election show a competitive race for governor between Republican Doug Ducey and Democrat Fred DuVal.
Both the left-leaning Public Policy Polling and the right leaning Rasmussen Reports had the race as a dead heat.
The surveys were taken just as Ducey, the former Cold Stone Creamery CEO who served as Arizona’s treasurer for the last four years, was celebrating his win in last week’s GOP gubernatorial primary, where he captured 36 percent of the vote in a six-way primary. He was well ahead of second-place finisher Scott Smith, the former Mesa mayor who nabbed 22 percent of the vote, and third-place finisher Christine Jones, who ended up with 16 percent of the vote. (The rest of the field: Secretary of State Ken Bennett won 12 percent, disbarred attorney Andrew Thomas got roughly 8 percent and former California Congressman Frank Riggs got about 4 percent.)
DuVal, who did not face a primary challenge, was up on TV airwaves on the day after the primary with an ad featuring Republican Grant Woods, a former Arizona attorney general who chaired Gov. Jan Brewer’s 2010 campaign.
“Fred DuVal has the skills and temperament we need to put aside the divisive politics and move Arizona forward,” Woods said in the ad.
At the opening of his downtown Tucson “Fredquarters” last week, DuVal told a packed room that the ad with Woods was designed to let voters “know what I’m about.”
“You may be Democrats, you may be independents, you may be Republicans,” DuVal said. “But we have to build a state together.”
As Republicans went to the polls last week to choose a nominee, the left-leaning Progress Now released a poll showing that Ducey and DuVal were entering a tight race. The Public Policy Polling survey showed that both Ducey had the support of 34 percent of self-identified likely voters, while DuVal had the support of 32 percent. When the pollsters asked undecided voters which way they were leaning, DuVal picked up 3 percent, while Ducey picked up 1 percent, putting the candidate into a dead heat at 35 percent each.
“Democrats have an opportunity in Arizona because voters are unhappy with Governor Brewer and the current direction of the state,” wrote Public Policy Polling Tom Jensen in a polling memo. “An unpopular incumbent and a damaged Republican nominee are combining to make the Arizona governor’s office a great opportunity for a Democratic pick up this fall.”
Libertarian Barry Hess and Americans Elect candidate John Mealer will also be on the November ballot.
A unusually high 12 percent of the voters surveyed said they were supporting Hess, who has run for governor on the Libertarian ticket three times (2002, 2006, 2101), as well as taking stabs at the U.S. Senate (2000) and president of the United States (2008).
“The high level of support for Hess reflects the unusual amounts of support we’re finding for third party candidates across the country right now as voters are unhappy with both parties,” Jensen noted.
One key number in the poll, which surveyed 588 likely voters on Aug. 24-25 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent: 41 percent of the voters have an unfavorable impression of Ducey, while just 26 percent have a favorable impression. That underwater ranking likely stems from the negative attacks against Ducey in the GOP primary, Jensen suggested.
Twenty percent of voters have a favorable impression of DuVal, compared to 21 percent who view him unfavorably. That means about six in 10 voters don’t have any opinion of him at all, which suggests that he hasn’t yet made a big impression on Arizonans. While DuVal has had decades of political experience, it has mostly been behind the scenes—working in Gov. Bruce Babbitt’s administration in the 1980s and the Clinton White House in the ’90s, and appointed the Arizona Board of Regents in 2006.
“DuVal overcomes Arizona’s GOP party registration advantage due to a 16 point lead with independent voters,” said Jensen. “Ducey is entering the general election badly damaged by the divisive primary campaign. Only 26 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of him to 41 percent who have a negative one. He’s at 17/57 with independents and a weak 43/24 even with Republican voters. DuVal remains largely undefined with 60 percent of voters having no opinion about him and those who do have one pretty evenly split.”
Over the Labor Day weekend, Rasmussen Reports released another survey of the governor’s race that showed Ducey and DuVal both with 40 percent of the vote. Eight percent supported another candidate, while 13 percent were undecided.
Ducey was viewed very favorably by 19 percent of the voters in the Rasmussen survey and very unfavorably by 20 percent of voters, while DuVal was viewed very favorably by 13 percent and very unfavorably by 10 percent.
The Rasmussen poll surveyed 850 likely voters on Aug. 27-28 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percent.
While Team DuVal cheered the polls as evidence of a tight race, Ducey spokeswoman Melissa DeLaney said it was too early in the campaign to put much stock in the surveys.
“There will be a lot of polls between now and Election Day, and we are confident that Doug Ducey’s message of greater opportunity for all Arizonans will resonate with voters across the state,” DeLaney said.
This article appears in Sep 4-10, 2014.
Your polls and break down provide interesting reading inside the political scene for us political junkies but proves nothing. Who is liked and viewed unfavorable make little sense when so few people are looking only at the political labels of the candidates to express their judgement.
The start of the political “outside” money is hitting the airwaves to discredit Fred DuVal and paint an unfavorable picture of his public service. A little bit of that negative attack should be directed at the Legislature for refusing funding for the University System of Education, not one person on the Board of Regents.
The time will come when we will examine the issues and vision of where the state is headed and each candidate’s views. Then the question is who is still standing after the attacks have done their job will be question. Arizona voters need to do some comparison shopping of the people seeking office and go to the polls armed with solid information, not attack ads.
It wasn’t easy for Ducey to ward off the other Republicans on the ballot with their negative day after day assaults on Ducey and his business dealing. Looking at the polls it is easy to see DuVal hasn’t made that much of an impression and Ducey has some serious explaining to do about his past business ethics.
So Mr. Nintzel while we can enjoy your analysis of the polls why not give us a little insight how this guy running for State Treasurer is going to “Balance Arizona’s Budget”? Did someone change the State Constitution while we weren’t looking and designate the State Treasurer the job of taxing and spending the state revenue?
While you’re at it, ask the Democrat State Committee if they really had no qualified candidate to seek the Constitutional Office of State Treasurer. Something is wrong when a state political party, or parties, Democrat or Republican can’t find candidates qualified within their ranks to run for the legislature or statewide office. It is no wonder so many voters in Arizona choose no political party when they register to vote.
Reminds us of that famous quote of Will Rogers. “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.”
Democrats you want to change things at the Legislature, get back to providing for education, environment, guard our precious natural resources, safety nets for disabled, elderly, protect consumers, build and maintain our infrastructure then act like an organized political party and stop playing giveaway with our elective offices.
I don’t think 2101 is a gubernatorial election year. Nonetheless, this independent right leaning voter favors DuVal this time and will pledge his support to see him elected.
….to me – it’s about new business in the state. Who can do it?
Despite a focus on the top office, as long as the Republican super-majority “law makers” are in office, we may just remain the “Alabama of the Southwest.” Stop trying to legislate strange right-wing social moral issues, and then let’s get healthy again with long-term future planning for schools and infrastructure and incentives for business without giveaways. It would be nice to have Arizona out of the news that makes us all look bad.
A Democrat from Tucson that is pro growth economy? I don’t believe that one exists.
This goes to Ducey as once again Phoenicians will save us from the stupid Tucson voters.
Tesla battery factory lands in Reno, NV. See ya Tucson! You guys down there never learn do you?
AZ needs a Governor who can lead and just not be a puppet for the Lobbyist, Kohl brothers or ALEC. We need bills passed that help and improve AZ. Good luck to Reno, NV and Tesla, that company was not needed in Tucson. It operates on public funds, not their own. Reno went into debt for billions for this company and not much will be seen from them. Tucson, you really luck out by not getting selected. Lets elect a progressive, Democrat and throw the Tea Party and Republicans over the Mountain side.
SAM SMITH, Right on with electing a progressive as Governor. Here is the problems as I see them. The idea that cutting taxes for the rich, offering government safety net programs for low-wage income earners, then eliminating or cutting them and some how destroying education in the name of school choice will bring employment to Arizona has been proven wrong. It’s a totally false program that keeps us next to poverty.
Both on the Federal and State level government spending on infrastructure, education and alternative energy are more likely to create jobs than Republican calls to cut spending and taxes to build business confidence and spur employment.
Gutting government programs, hostility to unions, opposition to minimum wage increases are sucking us dry in building a revenue base for any economic growth in Arizona. While we rely upon sales taxes to fund all of our government functions, brag about tax loop-holes for the corporations and wealthy folks, who has the purchasing power to generate those sales taxes.
The Republican and the right-wing myth with the wonderful experiment and uniquely strong ability to lie to themselves about trickle-down economics and less government is better government is just part of the problem.
The Republican Party is so disorganized and in such disarray it is really two parties each trying to pick up the banner of conservatism. The Tea Party Republicans and the more moderate Republicans fighting among themselves then coming out to hold power against the Democrats without solving their own internal discourse.
Ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition. “Obama is not a real American, a Muslim intent on destroying America with his Socialist ideas.” What I see is the Tea Party and a rump of spineless modrates. The GOP, quite simply, has been split in two.
We need to send them out in the desert for a couple years to fight it out while the progressives in charge of the Democrat party seek to put Arizona back on track again. That includes electing a full slate of Democrats to statewide and legislative offices.
It shows totally in the difference between the Republican parties in Arizona and Mississippi. In Arizona the GOP is complaining about the registered Independents voting in their primary rejecting the true believers and nominating establishment Republicans.
In Mississsippi on the other hand has the Tea Party favored GOP candidate camplaining about the establishment wing of the party inviting Democrat outsiders to vote for their candidate defeating the Tea Party candidate in the run-off election.
Which is it? Only the pure can vote in the Republican primary or outsiders invited in to some how protect them from their own registered GOP voters. Out to the desert and come back when you have sorted out the issues and the platform of the Republican party.
The ideas expressed by Fred DuVall in his campaign to become our next Governor are awesome, and allowing him the opportunity to build all of our infrastructure including all levels of education is the choice we should take this election.