The
Social Research Laboratory at Northern Arizona University has released the
first poll numbers for the congressional race between one-termer, rubber-stamping Republican Rick Renzi and the Democratic challenger Paul Babbitt. Overall, Rick Renzi holds a lead with 49% of the vote compared to 38% of the vote for Paul Babbitt and 12% undecided. (To read about the background of this race,
please see my diaries.)
Although the horse-race numbers are not as good as I had hoped for our guy, reading through the full poll offers much to be optimistic about. The size of the congressional district is huge. It is bigger then any other district in the country where the state has more than one congressional district. That together with the fact that Paul Babbitt has yet to mobilize his force, combined with Renzi being out there all over the state, gives me great hope that Babbitt will be able to turn those numbers around.
That thought is backed up by the numbers. When respondents were asked to name Rick Renzi, their congressman, 71% could not. Yet, 75% of the respondents feel that they know "some" or "a lot" about Mr. Renzi. 85% of the respondents could not name Paul Babbitt as the Democratic candidate running for congress in this district. And 54% of respondents said they know "nothing at all" about Paul Babbitt. To me, these numbers speak of a very soft group of likely voters who have yet to tune in to this race at all. If the Babbitt campaign can raise enough money to get Paul known to the voters, I think that we can take this seat from the Republicans. So show your support for this congressional seat and send some money to Paul today. Please add 3 cents to your contributions so the campaign knows it is coming from the blog world.
More Numbers Inside.
As we frequently see in poll numbers, women are wiser in their choice. Women split evenly in this race (Renzi 43% - Babbitt 42% - Undecided 16%). Renzi, the war-loving, ex-football playing, big SUV-driving, "Yes" man to Bush scores big amongst men (Renzi 56% - Babbitt 35% - Undecided 8%).
We have a lot of room we can gain right in our own party. 24% of democrats support Renzi and 16% of democrats are undecided. That is where getting Paul's message out will help greatly.
Fred Solop, the director of SRL made this interesting observation, "The eyes of the nation are on Arizona's First Congressional District waiting to see how this race plays out...Despite Renzi's lead at this time, the seat remains competitive and high-profile." I agree with him and expect the republicans to continue to dump money into our district. So please send some money to Paul today and add 3 cents to your contributions so the campaign knows it is coming from the blog world.
The survey was conducted between April 7th and April 11th 2004. 611 likely voters were polled. The pargin of error is +/- 4%. Questions?