Public Policy Polling

Arizona Odds and Ends

-Arizona voters are pretty evenly divided in their feelings about Governor Jan Brewer. 46% approve of her to 47% who disapprove.  Her numbers are up a little bit from November when she was at 42/49. The effort to recall her is a non starter. Only 35% support removing her from office while 58% are opposed. There are a decent number of voters who don't like her but don't favor a recall either.

-John McCain remains unpopular but actually has his best approval numbers in our polling since September of 2009. 41% of voters approve of the job he's doing while 48% disapprove, up from a 34/55 spread in November. He's seen a little bit of improvement with both Democrats and Republicans but the biggest gain is with independents, who he's gone from 23/66 to 37/51 with.

-Jon Kyl's seen his numbers improve over the last few months as well. His approval rating is now back on positive ground at 48/40, after being 41/44 in November. Voters may be softening towards him as he heads for the exits.

-62% of Arizonans have a favorable opinion of Gabrielle Giffords shortly after her retirement from the House to only 16% with a negative one. She is easily the state's most popular politician. Her popularity carries across party lines- she's at 88/6 with Democrats, 62/13 with independents, and 43/25 with Republicans.

Obama up big in Washington

PPP's newest Washington numbers find Barack Obama with an approval rating over 50% in the state and double digit leads over all of his potential Republican opponents. 51% of voters think he's doing a good job to 45% who give him poor marks. He's on positive ground largely because there are twice as many Republicans (12%) who approve of him as there are Democrats (6%) who disapprove.

What might be most interesting about the Washington numbers is how Mitt Romney stacks up against Obama compared to the other Republican candidates. Long perceived as the most electable GOP hopeful, Romney fares only the third best in Washington with both Rick Santorum and Ron Paul coming a few points closer to Obama.

Santorum's the strongest of the Republican candidates, trailing Obama 52-40. Paul does next best with a 51-38 deficit. As we frequently find to be the case he does the best of the GOP hopefuls with independents, trailing Obama by only 2 at 43-41. Romney trails by 15 at 53-38, and the weakest of the Republicans is Newt Gingrich who's down 20 at 55-35.

Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin Question Suggestions

This weekend we'll obviously do a final round of polling in Arizona and Michigan. It will be a Sunday-Monday tracker. Expect Michigan results between 10 and 11 eastern, and Arizona results between Midnight and 1 AM eastern each of those nights.

If you have any question suggestions beyond the obvious stuff for those polls, please send them our way. We'll definitely do an early vote breakdown for Arizona this time and regret not having done it last week.

In Wisconsin we'll look look at the Senate, Presidential, and most importantly Gubernatorial races. That's where we really need your help- what Democrats should we look at to test against Scott Walker? And any other questions you think we should ask in Wisconsin beyond the obvious horse race stuff we'd greatly appreciate.

Thanks as always!

Michigan Sports Poll

-By a narrow margin Michigan voters say the Tigers are their favorite professional sports team in the state. They get 29% to 27% for the Lions, 20% for the Red Wings, and just 6% for the currently moribund Pistons.

There's a significant racial divide in who voters pick as their favorite teams. Among white voters the Tigers win easily with 33% to 24% for the Lions, 22% for the Red Wings, and just 3% for the Pistons. But among black voters the Tigers take up the basement at 5%, trailing the Lions at 54%, Pistons at 23%, and even the Red Wings at 8%. That's just another sign that baseball has a lot of work to do to garner interest from African Americans.

This is tied in with the racial divide but Republicans pick the Tigers over the Lions 36-27, while Democrats pick the Lions over the Tigers 32-24.

-37% of voters in the state say they're Michigan fans to 31% who side with Michigan State and 32% who don't care either way. There is somewhat of an ideological divide on this question. 'Very liberal' Michiganders pick the Wolverines 55-26, while 'very conservative' ones pick the Spartans 37-30. White voters are pretty evenly split, going for Michigan 34-32, but 53-22 support from black voters pushes the Maize and Blue's lead out to 6 points.

Obama ties Romney with Arizona

Arizona is a great microcosm of how Barack Obama's reelection prospects have improved over the last 3 months. When we polled there in November his approval numbers were atrocious and his prospects for winning the state in the general election didn't look very good. Now he's getting more popular, the Republicans are getting less popular, and he appears to have a decent chance there.

Obama is tied with Mitt Romney in the state at 47%. He leads Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich each by 4 points, 46-42 and 48-44 respectively. The only Republican he actually runs behind is Rick Santorum, although only by a single point at 47-46. This is the latest in an increasingly long line of our polls recently that challenge the premise that Romney is a much stronger general election candidate than Santorum.

Obama's standing against Romney is greatly improved from November when he trailed by 7 points at 49-42. Part of the reason for that is Obama's own numbers have improved. He has a 46/52 approval rating in the state now where it was 41/54 three months ago. Obama's approval rating with Democrats has increased from 74% to 87% over that time. That's a trend we're seeing nationally- the longer the GOP race gets dragged out, the more Democrats unify around Obama. Obama's also flipped his numbers with independents from negative territory (35/57) to positive (51/46).

Washington State Poll

-PPP finds the race for Governor of Washington tied, with Jay Inslee and Rob McKenna each at 42%. McKenna had led 40-38 on PPP's only previous poll of the race, last May. The reason Inslee has closed that small gap is that he's now getting the same percentage of the Democratic vote- 81%- that McKenna is getting of the Republican vote.

Inslee's share of the Democratic vote has gone from 68% to 81%, while McKenna's share of the GOP vote has increased just slightly from 79% to 81%. McKenna continues to lead by double digits with independents, 43-31, but the vanishing of the party unity gap has knotted this race up.

Both of the Gubernatorial candidates are well liked with voters in the state and they've pulled about even on name recognition. 68% of voters are familiar with McKenna and he has a 39/29 favorability. 64% know Inslee and he has a 36/28 favorability. There aren't a lot of races these days where we find voters liking both of their choices.

-The vote on gay marriage in Washington looks like it should be pretty close. 50% of voters say they'll vote to uphold the law legalizing gay marriage, while 46% say they would vote to repeal it. You see the standard huge generational gap on this issue. Young voters support gay marriage 63/32, while seniors oppose it 56/39. Even if voters do repeal the law this fall, it's pretty clear the direction things are moving in.

While Washington voters are closely divided on marriage itself, 78% support some form of legal recognition for gay couples in the form of marriage or civil unions while only 20% think they should have no rights at all. Even 59% of Republicans at least support civil unions. That may bode well if there's a repeal vote this fall- almost all voters in the state are at least somewhat accepting of same sex relationships.

-Washington voters are also leaning toward legalizing marijuana. 47% of voters say they're currently inclined to vote yes on Initiative 502 to 39% who are opposed. This leads by double digits with every age group except for seniors, who oppose it 45/35.

Flake leads Arizona Senate race

Republicans look to be in pretty good shape for holding onto Jon Kyl's Senate seat. GOP front runner Jeff Flake leads both of his Democratic opponents, Richard Carmona and Don Bivens, by identical 11 points margins at 46-35. Wil Cardon, a long shot for the Republican nomination, leads both Democrats as well. He's up 38-32 on Bivens and 37-33 on Carmona.

These numbers are pretty similar to what PPP found polling Arizona in November with one exception- Flake has built his lead over Carmona up from 4 points to 11. Carmona's support has pretty much stayed in place- he was at 36% then and he's at 35% now. But Flake's support has increased from 40% to 46%.

Certainly part of Flake's early strength is superior name recognition. 66% of voters are familiar with him, compared to only 27% for Carmona, 19% for Bivens, and 18% for Cardon. Still 36% see Flake favorably to only 30% with a negative opinion, and those are pretty decent statewide numbers for a member of an unpopular Congress.

State favorability poll

Over the course of four months starting last October, we asked American voters nationally what their impressions of each state are.  Hawaii came out on top, by far, with California bringing up the rear.

State	+/-	Margin
Hawaii	54-10	44
Colorado	44-9	35
Tennessee	48-14	34
South Dakota	42-8	34
Virginia	45-13	32
Montana	39-7	32
Alaska	46-17	29
Oregon	43-14	29
North Carolina	40-11	29
Pennsylvania	40-11	29
Washington	43-17	26
Kentucky	42-16	26
Iowa	42-17	25
Oklahoma	40-16	24
Vermont	39-15	24
Wisconsin	40-17	23
Wyoming	34-11	23
Florida	43-21	22
North Dakota	33-11	22
Missouri	32-11	21
New Hampshire	37-18	19
Indiana	31-12	19
Idaho	30-11	19
Nebraska	29-11	18
Arizona	39-22	17
Michigan	38-21	17
Maine	32-15	17
Ohio	34-18	16
Delaware	32-16	16
Maryland	31-15	16
South Carolina	34-19	15
New Mexico	30-15	15
Kansas	28-13	15
New York	40-29	11
Georgia	31-20	11
Minnesota	27-17	10
Rhode Island	26-16	10
Texas	40-31	9
Massachusetts	35-27	8
West Virginia	23-15	8
Arkansas	25-20	5
Connecticut	26-22	4
Nevada	28-26	2
Alabama	27-26	1
Louisiana	24-24	0
Utah	24-27	-3
Mississippi	22-28	-6
New Jersey	25-32	-7
Illinois	19-29	-10
California	27-44	-17

Santorum leads in Washington

Wedged between the Michigan/Arizona primaries and Super Tuesday the Washington state GOP caucus hasn't received a lot of attention. At least for now it looks like it could give Rick Santorum some momentum headed into the critical March 6th contests. He leads there with 38% to 27% for Mitt Romney, 15% for Ron Paul, and 12% for Newt Gingrich.

Santorum is by far the most popular of the Republican candidates with 69% viewing him favorably to only 18% with a negative opinion.  Romney is the only other one who even has a positive favorability rating. He's at 47/42. The disparity between Santorum and Romney's numbers in Washington resembles what we found for the contests two weeks ago in Missouri and Minnesota, both of which Santorum ended up winning by a healthy margin.

Romney lead small in Arizona

The Republican race for President in Arizona looks like a close one, with Mitt Romney leading Rick Santorum only 36-33. Newt Gingrich is third at 16% and Ron Paul fourth at 9%.

Santorum is better liked by Arizona Republicans than Romney, but the gap isn't as wide as we're finding in a lot of other states. Santorum's at +34 (61/27), while Romney's at +24 (58/34).

One thing to keep an eye on over the next week is whether Newt Gingrich can hold his support. 16% is pretty good for him compared to what we're finding other places right now, but only 46% of his voters say they're solidly committed to him. 40% of his supporters say that Santorum is their second choice, compared to only 25% for Romney. If Gingrich's supporters see he's not viable and decide to jump ship the race could get even closer.

Santorum and Romney are both generally winning the same groups we find them winning in Michigan and nationally right now. The reason Romney's leading in Arizona but trailing in those other places is that he's at least staying competitive with the groups he tends to be weaker with. For instance he's only down by 11 points with Tea Party voters, 43-32. He's only down 13 with those describing themselves as 'very conservative,' 44-31. And he's down just 18 with Evangelicals, 45-27. Those are all groups he's losing by more than 25 points in Michigan right now.

Romney's up by good sized margins in Arizona with seniors (41-32), Hispanics (41-30), women (39-31), 'somewhat conservative' voters (43-29), and moderates (39-22).  It's kind of a given at this point that Romney will take moderates and Santorum 'very conservative' voters. The 'somewhat conservative' ones are really the swing voters of the GOP electorate and they're leaning towards Romney in both Arizona and Michigan right now.