In the past week I have seen ads from some “dark money” group attacking Sandra Kennedy in the Arizona Corporation Commission race on the air here in Tucson, which is odd, given that all the Corp. Comm. candidates are running clean elections, we have been assured by all the politicos at the Arizona Capitol Times and the Arizona Republic that the Corp. Comm. race is in the bag for the GOP, and if one was going to make an ad buy it would be in Maricopa County, not Pima. Wassup?
Now I know why this “dark money” group suddenly started spending money in a down ballot race that does not garner enough attention from the voters: a GOP pollster that has done work for Governor Jan Brewer and the Republican Governors Association — a biased poll for sure — nevertheless shows Democrats leading in all the statewide races. You can choose to believe this GOP pollster or not, but clearly the RGA believes it and it is coordinating last minute ad buys with its “dark money” network accordingly. Believe it!
The Arizona Capitol Times reports, First poll shows DuVal ahead, while Ducey leads most others:
For the first time, a publicly released poll of the Arizona governor’s race showed Democrat Fred DuVal in the lead.
The live-caller poll, conducted on Oct. 7-8 by Oregon-based Moore Information, a respected GOP pollster, showed DuVal leading Republican nominee Doug Ducey 39-36. Libertarian candidate Barry Hess had 3 percent of the vote, Americans Elect candidate John Lewis Mealer had 1 percent and 21 percent were undecided.
No margin of error was made available in the poll. As a live-caller poll of 400 respondents, the margin of error should be around 4.9 percent. The Moore Information poll was not commissioned by either gubernatorial campaign, according to the source who provided it to the Arizona Capitol Times.
“It tells us a couple things – that Ducey has this hard ceiling, that the attacks against Fred just have not been effective, that Fred has still a lot of room to grow. And that’s why we’re really optimistic,” said Bill Scheel, DuVal’s campaign manager.
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Moore Information showed Democrat Felecia Rotellini with a 42-39 lead on Republican Mark Brnovich in the attorney general’s race, with 19 percent undecided . . . Rotellini’s lead was within the margin of error.
In the secretary of state’s race, Democrat Terry Goddard led Republican Michele Reagan 48-38 with 14 percent undecided in the Moore Information poll.
Moore Information tested two races that were not included in [other] polls. The poll showed Democrat David Garcia leading Republican Diane Douglas 43-39 in the race for superintendent for public instruction. Twenty-three percent of respondents were undecided.
And in the race for Corporation Commission, Moore Information showed the parties splitting the race for two open seats. According to the poll, Democrat Sandra Kennedy led the field with 38 percent, followed by Republican Doug Little with 33 percent. The poll had Democrat Jim Holway trailing just behind with 32 percent, and Republican Tom Forese just behind him with 31 percent. Twenty-nine percent were undecided in the Corporation Commission race.
Remember Democrats . . . VOTE for your Democratic Dream Team!
This looks like it’s showing that we have a good number of highly competitive statewide races. It’s unlikely that either the Dems or the GOP will sweep the statewide offices.
Well, it looks like it is all over but the swearing in. I guess Democrat voters don’t even need to turn out at all now because the writing is on the wall. I would love to see Democrats get a healthy dose of overconfidence at this time, so I think we need to emphasize this poll. Good job, Blue Meanie!