Amidst all the hoopla around the Democratic National Convention, Obama's fantastic speech, and McCain's bizarre VP selection, John McCain spent most of the past week quietly campaigning in Arizona. Now ask yourself this simple question--why? Shouldn't he be spending more time in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico, etc? You know--those battleground states. I'll start the answer with a simple graph, which is the latest from pollster.com:
Look at the trend lines on the graph. McCain is going down, while Obama is trending up. More importantly, in the majority of polls for Arizona, McCain is polling under 50% for the state, with the latest poll showing a huge amount of undecided voters (28%). This is his home state. This is a dirty little secret that McCain would not want you or the media to pay much attention to. But just imagine if the shoe was reversed. Do you think the media would sit quietly by if Obama was polling below 50% in Illinois?
Early on, the McCain camp itself identified Arizona as a swing state:
Sen. John McCain's big struggle to energize a suspicious conservative Republican base and attract crucial independent voters is a national fight that encompasses his home state of Arizona. Despite representing the state in Congress for 26 years, McCain is now confronting a resurgent state Democratic Party and a burgeoning number of unpredictable independent voters.
Interestingly, the original link to this article in "The Washington Independent" has been scrubbed since I last referenced it...hmmm.
The New York Times later noted that McCain was being forced to spend time in Arizona to campaign:
As a general rule, Senator John McCain does not alert the news media when he eats breakfast in Arizona.
But on a Monday morning this month, Mr. McCain campaigned in a local diner, after a Sunday stop at his campaign office here, where he urged volunteers to "make sure we get our voters registered, to make sure we are organized."
"John McCain has striking vulnerabilities here," said Emily DeRose, spokeswoman for the Arizona Democratic Party. "We are going to take him to the mat. We are not giving him a pass in Arizona."
He spent time campaigning again in Arizona this week, this time with a speech to the American Legion in Phoenix. The crowd numbered around 6000 people. Compare this to the 13,000 people Obama drew at a rally before the Arizona primary and BEFORE he was even the nominee. Shall we say there's a lack of enthusiasm for McCain even in Arizona? McCain spoke to the American Legion because the military vote is strong in Arizona:
Across Arizona, the military has an economic impact of $9.1 billion a year, and creates 96,328 jobs, directly and indirectly, said the $200,000 study funded by the state Commerce Department. Of those 96,000-plus jobs, 45,568 are held by service members and civilians working on military installations.
He needs those votes to do well in Arizona. It's part of his base here, but even in Arizona, McCain is not wildly popular (including with Republicans), and as evidenced by his continuing trend to poll under 50% in the state. County and district level polls in Arizona also show problems for McCain. A recent poll of Arizona's most populous county, Maricopa County, showed McCain lagging behind against Obama, particularly with Hispanics, and another recent poll also showed McCain underperforming in a highly Republican district:
The poll also showed that Sen. John McCain has a slimmer-than-expected margin over newly-crowned Democratic opponent Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), capturing 48 percent to 43 percent if the contest were held today. Pres. George W. Bush won the district in 2004 by 58 percent.
In a match-up between a hypothetical Republican and hypothetical Democrat in the congressional race, 35 percent said they'd vote GOP and 34 percent went Democratic. This does not bode well for the Republican Party in a district with a Cook Partisan Voting Index rating of R+6.
McCain should be worried about losing Arizona. New numbers indicate that Democrats have gained substantial ground in Arizona in new voter registrations:
Republicans still have an edge over Democrats in Arizona, but not as much as they did just two years ago.
New voter registration figures released Wednesday show the Grand Old Party added more than 57,000 people since the 2006 primary. But the Democrats managed to pick up another 110,405 followers in the same period.
That means Democrats now total more than 34.2 percent of the nearly 2.8 million people registered to vote, up from less than 33.5 percent two years earlier. In contrast, the Republicans' share of those eligible to cast ballots slipped from more than 39.6 percent to less than 38 percent.
Even in Maricopa County, the home of the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and traditionally a GOP stronghold, the Democrats out-hustled their Republican counterparts, signing up 62,000 new members to 19,000 for the GOP, with nearly 50,000 registering as independents. In traditionally Democratic Pima County, the party added 25,000 new members against about 13,500 for Republicans.
In addition, the number of Independent voter registrations went up substantially in Arizona during this same time period:
And the number and share of those not interested in affiliating with any of the recognized parties went up by nearly 94,000. They now total more than 27.1 percent of eligible voters.
Most of these new Independent voters are under the age of 30. We know how well Obama does with this age group. Independents in Arizona make up about 1/3 of the electorate. In 2006, they swung in favor of the Democrats placing two new Democratic congressional representatives in the House (Harry Mitchell and Gabrielle Giffords). In most polls coming out of Arizona, it seems that these Independents are currently evenly split between McCain and Obama. Three factors will play a crucial role in whether Obama wins Arizona (overall turnout, which direction the Independent voters swing, and turnout of Hispanic voters, who heavily favor Obama). The Arizona Secretary of State is predicting a record 85% turnout rate for Arizona this election, which is aided by early vote by mail ballots. And check out the gap with Hispanic voters:
According to Project New West's numbers, Hispanics in Arizona support Sen. Obama over Arizona Sen. John McCain by a 32 point margin, 58 to 26.
Our very popular Democratic Governor in Arizona, Janet Napolitano, recently slammed McCain about his unpopularity in his home state:
Assailing his Westerner credentials, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano said the presumptive Republican presidential nominee was not on top of the issues his constituents care about.
"Sen. McCain may be the senator from Arizona, but he’s not of Arizona," Napolitano said. "He’s really a Washington, D.C., guy who has a Senate seat from Arizona."
"I’m the governor of Arizona," she went on, setting up a swipe at McCain’s wealth. "Just to clarify the record: Most of us do only own one house."
Howard Dean recently said that they were going to be "serious" in contesting Arizona during this election:
"The state parties were in bad shape," recalled Dean of his impression when he took over leadership of the Democratic Party, "but there were three that were in really good shape, and one was Arizona, thanks to Pederson."
Dean said he wanted to "build on the incredible work Jim has set up" by reaching out to rural voters in Arizona, flipping two currently Republican seats and winning the state's ten electoral votes for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.).
And this week, the Obama camp finally announced that it was organizing its ground game in Arizona:
The veil has been lifted a little on the Obama campaign's plans for Arizona, and they will all flow from state director Kelly Paisley. Thursday, Paisley and Gov. Janet Napolitano chief of staff Dennis Burke both acknowledged that she will command the nascent Obama organization, which is in the process of being staffed.
I hope Obama makes a campaign stop or two in Arizona while he is visiting New Mexico, Nevada, or Colorado. It's a short hop, and he will get a large crowd here--and it will rattle McCain's cage some more, forcing him to spend time and resources in the state.