AZ-03: Weak numbers for John Shadegg

PolitickerAZ has gotten its hands on a Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll of voters in Arizona's 3rd District, and the numbers are not good for incumbent Republican John Shadegg.

The poll, which was taken Jan. 14-16, tested Shadegg's favorability numbers, re-elect numbers, and name recognition, and the results are surprisingly bad for him:

Despite winning seven consecutive elections to Congress and representing this district for 13 years, John Shadegg does not have a well-defined image among his constituents.

Only three out of five voters in the district (62 percent) could identify Shadegg by name. Just one in four voters (25 percent) said they have warm or favorable feelings about Shadegg, while nearly as many (22 percent) said they have cool or unfavorable feelings about him. To put this in perspective, there are more voters who cannot identify Shadegg than there are that rate him favorably.

More evidence of Shadegg’s vulnerability is the number of voters who are presently inclined to re-elect him. Currently, only two out of five voters (39 percent) say they will vote to re-elect John Shadegg, while nearly as many (38 percent) say they will vote for someone else. What should be most alarming to a 13-year incumbent is that only one in eight voters (13 percent) say they will definitely vote to re-elect Shadegg.

While I find it quite hard to believe that 38 percent of voters in Shadegg's district don't know who he is after 13 years in Congress, these numbers are pretty damning if accurate, particularly given the Republican bent of the district (its Cook PVI is just under R+6.)The 39% reelect number, in particular, is positively abysmal if it's accurate.

It's a rough district, of course, and has been that way for a while; Bush managed 58% here in 2004, and Shadegg has never drawn a really serious challenge since his election in 1994. On the bright side, we have a genuinely strong contender this time in attorney Bob Lord, who has shown excellent fundraising ability and has put this race on the DCCC's target list for 2008.

Shadegg hasn't helped his own cause much, either, first embroiled in a mini-scandal involving possibly illegal fundraising activities, then deciding to retire from Congress before he magnanimously decided to stick around for the betterment of Washington (I'm figuring he was begged to stay by the beleaguered NRCC).

If this polling is accurate at all, though, having Shadegg on the ticket may not be much better for the GOP than a generic Republican would be. Pity the poor NRCC; even when they can prevent their incumbents from retiring, it doesn't seem to do much good.