Saturday, March 8, 2014

John McCain least popular Senator in the country, Ted Cruz leads Republican primary field in Arizona-PPP poll, Feb. 28-Mar. 2, 2014

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3/6/14, "McCain Least Popular Senator in Country," Public Policy Poll. Feb. 28-Mar. 2. "870 Arizona voters including 403 Republican primary voters."

-PPP's newest Arizona poll finds that John McCain is unpopular with Republicans, Democrats, and independents alike and has now become the least popular Senator in the country. Only 30% of Arizonans approve of the job McCain is doing to 54% who disapprove. There isn't much variability in his numbers by party- he's at 35/55 with Republicans, 29/53 with Democrats, and 25/55 with independents, suggesting he could be vulnerable to challenges in both the primary and general elections the next time he's up.

McCain trails in hypothetical general election match ups with both 2012 nominee Richard Carmona (41/35) and former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords (42/35). He would lead though in a match up with former Governor Janet Napolitano, 44/36. This has the potential to be an interesting one in 2016.

-The Presidential race in Arizona in 2016 could be interesting as well. Hillary Clinton narrowly trails Jeb Bush (45/44), but leads Chris Christie (44/41), Rand Paul (46/43), and Mike Huckabee (47/41). Arizona could finally reach its long anticipated battleground status this cycle.

Ted Cruz leads the Republican primary field in the state with 16% to 14% for Rand Paul, 12% for Chris Christie, 11% each for Mike Huckabee and Jeb Bush, 8% each for Paul Ryan and Scott Walker, 4% for Marco Rubio, and 2% for Bobby Jindal. This is the best poll showing we've found for Cruz in a long time- he leads based on his strength with 'very conservative' voters, among whom he gets 22%."...

[Ed. note: Ted Cruz had even greater strength among 'very liberal' respondents to the poll with 27%. It's just one poll, but the author of this report went to extra trouble to cite erroneously that Ted Cruz' strength in the poll came from 'very conservative' voters whereas he had even greater strength among 'very liberal' respondents. Additionally, the author chose to report alleged skew for Cruz and no one else. The data is on the last page they provide.]

(continuing): "-Jeff Flake's poll numbers went into the gutter last April after he voted against requiring background checks on all gun purchases, and they haven't seen any improvement since then. Only 27% of voters approve of the job he's doing to 47% who disapprove. Republicans only narrowly give him positive marks (46/27), while Democrats (10/71) are far more unified in their disapproval of him....

-Finally despite the state's ancestral ties to a lot of teams who have long held their Spring Training in the state, Arizonans are still strongly Diamondbacks fans. 50% say that's their favorite MLB team to 7% for the Rockies, 5% for the Yankees, 4% for the Red Sox, 3% for the Cubs, and 1 or 2% for every other team polled. Diamondbacks fans are bullish about their prospects for this year- 81% think they'll make the playoffs, 42% think they'll make the World Series, and 23% even think they'll win it."

Full results here.

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Added: The poll said it was only Arizona voters. I didn't see any national polling data linked, so don't know their source for saying McCain is most unpopular in the whole country. It's certainly believable, perhaps they have the information from other surveys and just didn't link to it here.

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