Swing State Project

« FL-Sen: Bense Not Running | Main | CA-50: Busby and Bilbray Tied »

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

AZ-05: Dogfight

Posted by DavidNYC

Independent polls of House races from reputable outfits are the political junkie's equivalent of free-basing - especially when they look this good (registered voters, no trendlines):

Mitchell: 45
Hayworth: 50
Undecided: 5
(MoE: 4.1%)

Though SUSA doesn't provide name rec numbers, I have to believe that Mitchell - though pretty well-known - trails Hayworth, which makes this showing even more remarkable. And the internals are nifty, too. Mitchell does a better job among Dems (83-13) than Hayworth does among Republicans (79-16). He also leads among independents, 50-44.

One note of quasi-caution: According to the AZ SoS (PDF), the registration breakdown in AZ-05 is 44R-28D-27I. The SUSA poll, meanwhile, shows a split of 45R-32D-22I. Republicans will obviously say that this is a "biased" sample. (Clearly SUSA is part of the vast left-wing conspiracy.) But notice that the GOP sample is almost exactly on target here. My interpretation is that more independents are identifying with the Democrats.

An this makes perfect sense, given that Gallup has recently shown "an unusually high level of enthusiasm" among Democrats. Gallup has also demonstrated (sub. only) that while many Americans like to call themselves "independents," most of those actually do indeed identify with one part or the other. Since Dems are on the upswing, I can easily believe that more indies are identifying with us. If anything, I might be a little suspicious of the sample if it didn't show any shift to the Dems.

Anyhow, all I have to say at this point is... give `em hell, Harry!

(Thanks to Mister T in AZ.)

Posted at 06:45 PM in 2006 Elections - House, Arizona | Technorati

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.swingstateproject.com/mt/mt-track-ssp.cgi/2341

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference AZ-05: Dogfight:

» AZ-05 House Election from Rubicon
Arizona 5 looks like it's going to be a battle royal between corruption allegations and you-can't-defend-the-border allegations. Hayworth is a hard-liner on immigration, ranked by Washingtonian magazine as number 1 in the "No Rocket Scientist" category... [Read More]

Tracked on August 21, 2006 10:54 PM

Comments

The lower indy numbers in the poll versus registration figures could just reflect the fact that turnout among indys is lower than partisans, especially during midterm elections. Do we know if SUSA weights for party ID?

Posted by: Bothwell at May 10, 2006 07:30 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment

SUSA poll results:

The revered Harry Mitchell: 45%

The flushed, red-faced rodeo clown: 50%

Mitchell is at least a toss-up at this point to win this race. I have given money to Mitchell this cycle for three reasons. One, I hate JD Hayworth, two, I really like Harry Mitchell and think he's a great candidate, and three, the race is actually a winnable one for us.

Posted by: boyblue at May 10, 2006 11:50 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment