Arizona’s Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is leaving his opponent Blake Masters (R) in the dust with a 12-point lead, according to a new OH Predictive Insights poll. This important swing-state midterm election is crucial if the Democrats want to maintain control of the Senate in the 2022.
The former astronaut and husband of former Representative Gabby Giffords, Kelly has taken 47 percent of self-described likely voters. At the same time, Blake Masters has 35 percent of the support. A third-party candidate, Libertarian Marc Victor took six percent, and a large percentage, 12 percent, still remains undecided.
OHPI Chief of Research Mike Noble said:
‘Incumbent Kelly is performing fairly well among some key underrepresented groups in the electorate like Hispanics and Independents, and with 1 in 5 likely voters of his opposite party supporting him, the Democratic senator is in decent standing in his race. However, Kelly can’t quite count his chickens yet – early voting is still 3 weeks away.’
For some time the two candidates were neck-and-neck. Then, Kelly pulled away leading in important demographics. However, that “big question mark is with the undecideds, as Noble said:”
‘As we saw in the AZPOP prior to the primaries, the big question mark is with the undecideds who’ve held a lot of deciding power this election season. With a quarter of likely voters still undecided and only 5 points between Finchem and Fontes, undecideds will be the ones to watch to see which way they sway in the Secretary of State race.’
Among favorability, Kelly leads with 51 percent of the vote compared to 40 percent going Masters. In the unfavorability column, Masters led with 49 percent to Kelly’s 43 percent.
Surprisingly, Kelly has been hauling in support from Republicans. He is taking 20 percent of the respondents who said they will vote for him. Masters has 65 percent of the Republican voters, but Kelly takes 86 percent of the Democratic voters.
Among Independents, Kelly was up 15 percent, taking 43 percent of them while his opponent was taking 28 percent of their votes. The first Democratic Arizona senator in a quarter of a century, Kelly leads Masters among the Hispanic population by a full 40 points. And among younger voters between the ages of 18 to 34 inclusive, Kelly led by a dramatic 44 points.
The former astronaut had a dramatic lead among voters earning under $50,000 per year:
‘He leads by 25 points among voters making less than $50,000 per year and has tight leads among those making $50,000 to $100,000 annually and those making more than $100,000.’
The poll was conducted the day after a Republican super PAC linked to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stunned the public by announcing it was pulling nine million ad campaign dollars from Masters’ campaign.
Still that large undecided block of voters remains questionable. In the poll, 12 percent of the Republicans and 19 percent of the Independents remain uncertain.
The online poll by OH Predictive Insights was completed between September 6 through September 9, 2022 inclusive, and included random likely voters from across the state. The number of participants who completed the survey was 654 with a +/- 3.83 percent margin of error.
Christie writes Gloria Christie Reports & Three White Lions Substack newsletters and a Three White Lions podcast available on Apple, Spotify, etc. She is a political journalist for the liberal online newspaper The Bipartisan Report. Written in her own unique style with a twist of humor. Christie’s Mueller Report Adventures In Bite-Sizes a real-life compelling spy mystery (in progress). Find her here on Facebook. Or at Three White Lions her book on Amazon Kindle Vella and the Gloria Christie Three White Lions podcast on Apple, Spotify, etc.
