Hot on the heels of President Bush’s $600,000 fundraiser for Tim Bee, we have two starkly different polls of freshman Democrat Gabrielle Giffords’ first re-election campaign.
First, we have Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (6/18-22, likely voters, including leaners):
Gabrielle Giffords (D-inc): 59
Tim Bee (R): 35
(n=502)
Lots of good news for Giffords here, including a very high 92% name recognition and a 57% favorability rating. But is it too good to be true? Tim Bee’s pollster thinks so.
Arizona Opinion for Tim Bee (5/15-23, likely voters):
Gabrielle Giffords (D-inc): 47
Tim Bee (R): 40
(MoE: ±4.4%)
Bee’s poll is staler and from (as far as I know) a less reputable polling outfit than GQR. However, if we fall back on the clichéd but time-tested method of locating the truth somewhere in the middle of these two spreads, Giffords is starting off in a solid place against one of the GOP’s few legitimately formidable recruits.
SSP currently rates this race as Leans Democratic.
Though probaby closer to Giffords poll than Bee’s. I’m confident Giffords will win by double-digits. AZ-05 is a bit more worrisome, but I have little doubt Mitchell will win big as well.
We’re in great shape.
How does Bee expect to win? He’s down in his internal polls, will be outspent significantly and is running in a wave year for the opposite party. Barring a major scandal there is just no way he can win. He’s not going to stop Giffords climb to possibly the presidency.
You take a slightly more Republican-demographics-leaning sample, and push the leaners less, and put Tim Bee before Gabrielle Giffords. Something like that.
Seems to me that Bee’s poll is good news–for Giffords. If the worst case scenario still gives her a solid lead, I’d say she’s in good shape for November.