Arizona Races Make the NY Times

Political junkies will find this interesting. 

PHOENIX — The prospect of a red state going blue. Democrats flush with cash. Republicans fighting to hold on.

It is an increasingly familiar situation in the presidential campaign as Senator John McCain strives to hold or gain ground in battleground states. But in this case, the fight is over the Congressional delegation in Mr. McCain’s home state of Arizona.

Few doubt that Mr. McCain will win Arizona’s 10 electoral votes. But less clear is whether he will have the coattails to rescue his party from Democratic advances in the state.

Democrats — and privately, some leading Republicans — say they believe that the Democrats can pick up one and possibly two Congressional seats now held by Republicans. That would give them a majority of Arizona’s Congressional delegation — now with eight members — for the first time since 1966.

Comments

[ron]

Greg, remember your blog about McCaiin's coattails awhile back?

I think this is evidence that those tails are virtually not existent. I have yet to see any congressional R candidates broadcasting that McCain supports them - but then I don't see all the ads - so maybe I stand to be corrected.

[Sam]

CD-1 is and always will be a tossup. However, if one thinks Bob Lord, who has run on nothing but personal attacks and negativity, can take CD-3, I have a bridge to sell.

[TS]

I wouldn't bet the mortgage on McCain winning Arizona's 10 electoral votes. The Valley has one of the lowest median ages of any U.S. metro area, and the state has one of the highest percentages of Hispanic voters. Younger voters and Hispanic voters are overwhelmingly backing Obama. Toss in all the recent transplants from liberal California, and factor in all the retirees who've seen their IRAs dry up.

It's not all that surprising several new polls suddenly show the AZ presidential race is toss-up. Like fellow Western states like New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada, Arizona has been slowly but surely turning from a red state into a blue state. If McCain does manage to hang on in Arizona, it'll be a lot closer than most people think.

[The Klute]

From the Kos:

Myers Research (D) & Grove Insight (D). 10/23-24. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)

Likely voters

McCain (R) 44
Obama (D) 40

Early voters (34% of the sample)

McCain (R) 46
Obama (D) 47

The sample was 40 percent Republican, 33 Democratic, and 26 percent independent. ASU has its own survey coming Monday, and they've hinted at similar results.

I can tell you, every Arizona Democrat is working every moderate to vote Obama. Scottsdale is damn near awash in Obama bumperstickers when compared to McCain.

I don't think we can pull it off in AZ, but man, wouldn't that just be a huge embarrasment.

[Name:]

The NYT implies that the D's picking up a seat now held by a Republican is due to some merit on the D's part. Getting Renzi's open seat would be one thing, and getting Shadegg's not-open one would be quite another. The NYT lumps both feats together.

In the worst of times, the R's just love to remember the good ole days of Karan English and Sam Coppersmith who were part of the state's "realignment" that wasn't.

[TE]

I live in Scottsdale and while I have seen a few Obama stickers I would hardly call us "awash" in them. The other day I got out of my car at Desert Ridge and counted 5 McCain stickers in a row on cars and no Obama Stickers (I take that back, I counted 1 NOBama sticker.)

[Brenda]

Please,
Judging from the reaction we are getting in Mohave County, we will bring the votes up considerably. We had a parade yesterday. The Republican float was greeted enthusiastically by probably 75% or more of the people watching. We have had to order McCain/Palin signs and bumper stickers 3 times and still have people wanting more. We have Democrats calling the office wanting signs, etc. We have never had the volunteers we have had this year. People are scared and they are working hard.

[Rachael]

You missed the most interesting part of the article to me...

"Two incumbent Democratic members of Congress, Representatives Harry E. Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords, who won their first terms in 2006, are widely expected to withstand Republican efforts to reclaim the seats."

As much as I wish this wasn't true... it is... Schweikert's campaign has been inept since winning the primary with mistake after mistake and Giffords raised so much money Bee never really had a chance

[ron]

This morning's (10/26/08) AZ Republic updated the registered voter count.

Here is the significant sentence - "Independents continued to grow at the fastest rate among voter groups: 8.6 percent."

And then this note - Independents at a total of 824,450 count for 27.6 percent of all registered voters.

The key is who gets this the vote of this 27% . Whoever wins in November, there will be significant analysis of this voter group following the election.

[The Klute]

Brenda,

Mohave County: Population 155,000
Maricopa County: Population 3.1 million

The most telling part of your post though:

"People are scared..."

Yeah.

[Name:]

Many Independents are people who registered to vote when they got a drivers license or to get a petition gatherer off their backs. Of all the registered voters, aren't Independents are the group least likely to vote?

[Lance E]

Obama does not have even a remote chance of winning Arizona outright, no polling data has ever shown otherwise and if it did, find a new pollster.

With regard to the congressional delegation, two of the seats are automatically Democratic, thanks to Justice Dept. oversight under the voting rights act (i.e. Pastor and Grijalva's seats).

Of the remaining six seats, one Republican became complacent over the course of 12 years and managed to offend just about everyone in the state (JD), one had a criminality problem (Renzi) and one open seat drew an heiress who can raise three times more money from mommy's personal friends than anyone has raised in state history (Giffords).

Even with the help of the DCCC, Lord is going to get pounded on a 2 to 1 basis from here on in and he will lose (he might want to have volunteered for one civic organization or something before seeking a congressional seat). Mommy's friends will keep Giffords in place, but after Bush is gone, CD 1 and CD 5 will swing back Republican (if Schweikert doesn't take Harry down, Hallman or someone else will). Newly created CD 9 in 2012 will also go Republican, giving the state House delegation a steady 6-3 Republican advantage going forward.

As noted by another poster, we heard a lot of talk about realignment during 1993 and this will be more of the same.

[The Klute]

Lance,

No one has shown him winning, but 2 have shown him within the margin of error. Obama? 23 points ahead in his home state.

"...thanks to Justice Dept. oversight under the voting rights act (i.e. Pastor and Grijalva's seats)."

Yeah, it's a shame we can't gerrymander the districts to totally disenfranchise whole segments of the Arizona population.

[Steve Rogers]

Mommy's friends? Gifford's fund-raising base is wide, wide, wide. And whatever friends have helped her raise it, it wasn't her mom, Lance.

Besides, you sound like you resent wealthy people. What are you, some kind of socialist?

[Nathan Hale]

Look forward to the upcoming revolution, especially if this crap comes to fruition:

Barack Obama on Chicago Public Radio WBEZ-FM, 2001:

The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society... and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that...

[nick]

Dems drink the New York Times cool aid while the Times bonds fall to junk status.

More reduction of staff to follow.

[ron]

Name: "Of all the registered voters, aren't Independents are the group least likely to vote?"

I guess we will find out next week...