Fox News Poll: Kelly “Trouncing” McSally by 13 Points in AZ Senate Race, Trump Trails Biden in State

This week’s Skinny delves into appointed U.S. Sen. Martha McSally’s campaign tailspin, but if you need more evidence, here’s a new Fox News poll that hit yesterday after our deadline.

McSally is trailing former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly by 13 percentage points in Arizona, according the survey. Half of the voters surveyed say they plan to vote for Kelly, while just 37 percent say they will vote for McSally.

McSally, who was rejected by Arizona voters in 2018 in favor of Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, has struggled on win over hearts and minds since she was appointed to fill out the late Sen. John McCain’s term.

In the presidential race, the Fox News poll shows 46 percent of voters favoring Democrat Joe Biden while 42 percent support President Donald Trump. The state is split when it comes to Trump’s job approval; 46 percent of those surveyed approved of the job Trump is doing, while 52 percent disapprove. But only 28 percent strongly approve of Trump’s job performance (with 17 somewhat approving), while 41 percent strongly disapprove (with 11 percent somewhat disapproving).

McSally is struggling across the board. A breakdown of the survey shows Kelly leads her among: men (51%-39%), women (50%-35%), white voters (48%-40%), Hispanic voters (61%-22%), voters who earn under $50K (51%-33%), voters who earn more than $50K (51%-38%), voters under 45 (52%-28%) and several other subgroups, McSally does better than Kelly among white evangelicals (59%-30%) 2016 Trump voters (73%-15%).

In other notes from the survey: 60 percent of voters are concerned they will catch COVID-19, while 39 percent are not concerned; 40 percent say that Gov. Doug Ducey is reopening Arizona too quickly, while 39 percent say it’s the right pace and 15 percent say it’s too slow; and 75 percent have a favorable opinion of people who wear face masks, while 12 percent have an unfavorable opinion. Gov. Doug Ducey got high marks in the survey, with 61 percent approving of his job performance and 33 percent disapproving.

This could be another yet another bad poll, but the trend is crystal clear among the surveys that have been released: McSally is falling further behind Kelly, the husband of Gabby Giffords, the former Southern Arizona congresswoman who stepped down from office after surviving a 2011 assassination attempt that left six dead and 13 wounded, including Giffords.

The Fox News poll was conducted by Beacon Research and Shaw & Company Research from May 30-June 2. It surveyed a random sample of 1,002 voters proportionately representative of voter makeup in Arizona. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
 

This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2020.