Public Policy Polling delivers a variety of new survey findings about Arizonans:
-Arizona voters are pretty evenly divided in their feelings about Governor Jan Brewer. 46% approve of her to 47% who disapprove. Her numbers are up a little bit from November when she was at 42/49. The effort to recall her is a non starter. Only 35% support removing her from office while 58% are opposed. There are a decent number of voters who don't like her but don't favor a recall either.-John McCain remains unpopular but actually has his best approval numbers in our polling since September of 2009. 41% of voters approve of the job he's doing while 48% disapprove, up from a 34/55 spread in November. He's seen a little bit of improvement with both Democrats and Republicans but the biggest gain is with independents, who he's gone from 23/66 to 37/51 with.
-Jon Kyl's seen his numbers improve over the last few months as well. His approval rating is now back on positive ground at 48/40, after being 41/44 in November. Voters may be softening towards him as he heads for the exits.
-62% of Arizonans have a favorable opinion of Gabrielle Giffords shortly after her retirement from the House to only 16% with a negative one. She is easily the state's most popular politician. Her popularity carries across party lines- she's at 88/6 with Democrats, 62/13 with independents, and 43/25 with Republicans.
-Arizona and Arizona State fans are both taking a wait and see approach with their new football coaches. Wildcats fans are more enthused about their new hire- 28% are happy with Rich Rodriguez and only 5% are unhappy with the choice. But 67% have no opinion either way. A similar 68% of Sun Devil fans have no opinion on the Todd Graham hire, but only 19% are pleased that he was chosen while 13% disapprove of his selection.
One thing interesting in this poll is that the state splits between Arizona and Arizona State with 27% saying they're a fan of each school. 54% with an opinion on the rivalry pales in comparison to 72% in North Carolina with a take on UNC/Duke and 68% in Michigan with an opinion about Michigan/Michigan State. Arizonans don't appear to have the same passion for college sports.
-Tim Tebow has a 45/18 favorability rating in Arizona, while Jeremy Lin's at 19/7. 63% with an opinion about Tebow to just 26% with one on Lin shows that Linsanity still has a long way to go to match Tebow mania. Lin does at least do better with Democrats (24/8) than Tebow who is actually unpopular with them (29/31).
