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Can McCain deliver his home state?
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Candidate
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| Contributor | DFWDem |
| Last Edited | DFWDem Jun 18, 2008 01:32pm |
| Category | General |
| News Date | Jun 18, 2008 01:00pm |
| Description | Phoenix - For a senator who consistently gets 80 percent approval ratings from Arizonans, it seems strange, bizarre even, that John McCain would not be a shoo-in to win his home state in November's presidential election. Some in-state analysts say chances are fair, in fact, that Arizona will end up in the Democratic column.
A big part of the uncertainty may be that the Republican Party's presumptive nominee has not distanced himself enough from the Bush administration to satisfy the one-third of state voters who are independents. But Senator McCain has also seen his support erode among Arizona's avid Bush supporters and social conservatives, for not backing the president on issues dear to their hearts. Toss in the resources and clout of Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, who will be pulling hard for her party's nominee, and anything can happen.
"The simple conclusion for Arizona is that this could be a competitive state," says Earl de Berge, director of the Behavior Research Center, which conducts the Rocky Mountain Poll. "As presidential material, with him so closely aligned to the mainstream right-wing politics of the White House, he doesn't have the types of numbers we would expect to see."
The latest Rocky Mountain Poll, conducted before Democrats settled on Sen. Barack Obama as their candidate, shows McCain winning Arizona over the Illinois senator by 11 percentage points. But in the same poll released May 24, fewer than 4 in 10 Arizonans said they see McCain as the best candidate to deal with two top issues: exiting Iraq and reviving the US economy. |
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