ARIZONA NEWS
Arizona voters poll shows Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly leads over potential GOP opponents
Oct 1, 2021, 4:35 AM | Updated: 7:48 am
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) (Photo by Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty Images)
(Photo by Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty Images)
PHOENIX — A recent poll of voters in Arizona shows incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly leading all potential Republican opponents in head-to-head matchups.
Kelly is back on the ballot for 2022 after winning the seat in 2020 during a special election to finish the late Sen. John McCain’s term, giving Arizona two Democrat senators for the first time since January 1953.
OH Predictive Insights conducted a poll of 882 registered Arizona voters from Sept. 7 to Sept. 12, with 35% identifying as Republican, 32% as Democrat and 33% as independent.
Kelly leads the potential head-to-head matchup of each Republican who has thrown their name in the hat to possibly replace the Democrat, made up of Attorney General Mark Brnovich, retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Michael McGuire and businessmen Blake Masters and Jim Lamon.
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“Evidently, Kelly is attempting to keep a low profile in an off-year while his opponents try to build up name recognition – a strategy that seems to be working, at least for now,” Mike Noble, OHPI chief of research, said in the release.
The Republican field is very much up in the air, the poll found, with 51% of the party’s voters being unsure which of their candidate to vote for.
Brnovich leads the group with 27%, followed by McGuire (14%), Masters (6%) and Lamon (3%).
Kelly in a potential head-to-head matchup leads Brnovich 43% to 39% with 18% unsure which of the two they would vote for, according to the poll.
The poll shows Kelly has a 44% to 37% advantage against McGuire, 43% to 36% against Lamon and 44% to 35% against Masters.
The Democrat has a total favorability of 47% compared to 43% unfavorable, with 10% having no opinion.
As Arizona firmly moves into tossup territory following a shift in the 2020 election from its typical Republican stronghold status, independent voters could be a key for Kelly.
His favorability among that group was 43%, according to the poll, much less than the Democrat rate of 79%. Kelly’s favorability among Republicans is 20%.
Voters were also polled on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who isn’t facing reelection until 2024.
The poll found Sinema with a 46% total favorability rating.
Sinema has 56% favorability among Democrats and 42% among Independents.
Her favorability is much stronger than Kelly’s with Republicans, at 40%.
