Public Policy Polling: Obama competitive in AZ

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

It's increasingly looking like Barack Obama has a serious chance at winning Arizona next year, largely because of the weakness of the GOP candidate field in the state. Public Policy Polling: Obama competitive in Arizona:

Arizona voters are closely divided on Obama but lean toward the negative side, with 46% approving of him to 50% who disapprove. Contrary to most places Obama's approval with Democrats (86%) is actually higher than his disapproval with Republicans (84%) is. He's also on positive ground with independents at 49/45. In most states that approval breakdown by party would put Obama in really good shape but there are a lot more GOP voters than Democrats in Arizona and that's why he's still under water.

Obama trails only one Republican – Mitt Romney – in a hypothetical match up in the state. Romney has a 48-44 advantage against him. This makes Arizona the third state in the last month, along with Nevada and Pennsylvania, where we've found Romney as the only Republican who leads Obama.

Too bad for Mittens because he will never be the GOP nominee for president. You can make book on that.

Obama leads Huckabee by 2 points at 46-44, Newt Gingrich by 7 at 47-40, Sarah Palin by 11 at 49-38, and Donald Trump by 12 at 48-36.

Arizona voters might not like Obama, but they like him better than any of these folks. Huckabee's favorability is a 35/48 spread, Palin's at 32/62, Gingrich is at 26/59, and Trump comes down at 24/66. Particularly noteworthy in Trump's numbers is that even among Republicans only 38% have a favorable opinion of him to 49% with a negative one. We'll have to see if our polling nationally and in other key states over the next few weeks confirms it, but those numbers suggest that the Trump bubble is already starting to burst.

* * *

Arizona is not likely to be important to whether Obama actually wins or loses reelection. But it's probably a state he'd like to have as a feather in his cap and if the Republicans nominate a weak enough person against him, he might just get it.

Full results here.