Arizona Republicans trailing in key Senate, gubernatorial races: New AARP poll

A new poll released Thursday shows Arizona Republicans trailing their Democratic opponents in the state’s key Senate and gubernatorial races less than 7 weeks before the November general election.

According to an AARP poll of likely Arizona voters, incumbent Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly leads Republican nominee Blake Masters 50%-42% in the race for the Senate, while Democratic Secretary of State Katie Hobbs has a slight lead over Republican nominee Kari Lake 49%-48% in the gubernatorial race.

A bright spot for Republicans in the poll shows them leading a generic congressional ballot by just one point over Democrats, 48%-47%, while a small percentage of voters in each race remains undecided.

In the Senate race, Kelly leads Masters in nearly every category of voters, including those aged 50 and older (48%-44%), independents (47%-39%), women (56%-36%), college educated (56%-37%) and Hispanic (63%-38%).

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Masters leads Kelly among men (50%-43%) and those without a college degree (46%-45%), but the two tied the preference of White voters at 46% each. 

Libertarian Senate candidate Marc Victor drew 4% support among likely voters.

In the gubernatorial race, Lake and Hobbs split each category, indicating how much the race has tightened.

Lake leads with voters aged 50 and older (50%-48%), men (53%-43%), voters without a college degree (53%-44%), and White voters (52%-45%), while Hobbs lead with independents (49%-45%), women (55%-42%), college educated voters (57%-40%) and Hispanic voters (62%-32%).

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The poll found that President Biden’s approval rating is underwater with likely voters in the state, showing only 45% approve of the job he’s done as president, compared to 55% who disapprove. 

Voters view former President Donald Trump more positively, with 50% approving of him and 50% disapproving.

Just 37% of voters have a favorable view of the state’s other Democratic senator, Kyrsten Sinema, who is not up for re-election until 2024. 54% have an unfavorable view of her.

When it came to which issues mattered most to voters as they head to the polls, immigration and border security came out on top with 16% of voters saying it was the most important. It was closely followed by inflation and rising prices at 14%.

Just 12% of voters viewed abortion as the most important issue, something Democrats across the country have invested heavily in campaigning on following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June.

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When asked specifically about the issues of inflation and rising prises and the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, 58% of voters aged 50 and older said inflation was the most important of the two, compared to just 40% who said Roe v. Wade.

Independents (55%-40%) and Republicans (90%-9%) agreed that inflation was more important than Roe v. Wade.

Only a majority of Democrats aged 50 and older (81%-17%) said Roe v. Wade was a more important issue than inflation.

Overall voters had a poor view in terms of the direction the country is headed, with just 27% saying it’s headed in the right direction, and 72% in the wrong direction. The numbers were similar to how they felt about the direction of Arizona (27%-73%).

Additionally, 88% of voters said they were motivated to vote in the midterm elections this year, and 62% said they were “very” or “somewhat” worried about their personal financial situation.

Fox News’ Power Rankings rate the Arizona Senate and gubernatorial races as “tossups.”

The general election will be held Tuesday, Nov. 8.