Poll: Giffords, Graf lead District 8 contenders (AZ CD-8 NRCC Backstabbing not working)

A week out from the primary election, Democrat Gabrielle Giffords and Republican Randy Graf have comfortable leads over their 8th Congressional District rivals, according an Arizona Daily Star-sponsored poll of likely voters.

The poll, conducted by Zimmerman & Associates and Marketing Intelligence, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points and polled 800 likely voters Sept. 1-4. Election Day is Tuesday.

It also found Republicans are more likely to cross party lines than Democrats in the general election.

Giffords, a former state legislator, led Democrats with support from 45.5 percent of those polled. Her closest Democratic competition is former anchorwoman Patty Weiss, who trailed by 17 points with 28.5 percent. Airline pilot Jeff Latas garnered 5 percent, Raytheon employee Alex Rodriguez 1.5 percent and Francine Shacter 1 percent, with Bill Johnson last at less than 1 percent.

On the Republican side, Graf led with 33 percent of the respondents. State Rep. Steve Huffman trailed by 8.5 points with 24.5 percent. Former party chairman Mike Hellon had 10 percent, Raytheon employee Frank Antenori received 2.8 percent and Mike Jenkins received 1 percent.

"Who knows what the last few days will hold," said pollster Carol Zimmerman. "But at this point in time, when this survey was done, you can confidently call Giffords the winner." She said Graf is also in a strong position, while noting statistically Huffman in within the margin of error of catching up to Graf.

The races are complicated by the fact that roughly 18 percent of Democrats polled were undecided, compared to nearly 29 percent undecided in the Republican race.

Giffords' campaign manager, Rodd McLeod, played down the numbers, saying "the only poll that matters is on Sept. 12." But he added: "I think that it shows that we've been really running a campaign that reaches out to voters and talks to voters about issues they care about."

The numbers fly in the face of Weiss' assertion that her name identification in Southern Arizona would counteract Giffords' advertising blitz.

Campaign spokesman Andrew Myers said the campaign is betting on "occasional voters," those who did not vote in the 2004 primary but are enthused by the competitive race and Weiss' local celebrity status.

"I think the strategies of the campaigns have been very different," he said. "We know that we're going to live and die by occasional voters."

Provided those voters don't turn out, Weiss would need to claim 93 percent of the undecideds in order to win, which would be a rarity, Zimmerman said.

"What we have found historically is if you're going in undecided, you'll go for the winner because you want to vote for a winner," she said.

Graf campaign manager R.T. Gregg said his candidate's numbers were lower than they would have been had Huffman not received financial support from national Republicans last week.

"That's not surprising because Steve Huffman's salacious and mudslinging attack has continued, and apparently will continue," he said of the numbers.

"This is a race that defies logic," he said. "I believe someone sat down in Washington and decided to play checkers, and what they didn't realize is that they're playing on a three-dimensional chessboard."

Even with nearly 30 percent of Republican voters still undecided, in a five-way race, Zimmerman said it would be difficult for Huffman to pick up a large enough bloc of voters to pull ahead.

But Huffman campaign manager Dave Stuempfle said the numbers back up the notion that "a vote for Randy Graf is a vote for Howard Dean and the national Democrats."

"Honestly, the Republican primary is the general election," he said. "Steve is the only Republican candidate who can win."

General-election forecasting

Poll questions about possible general-election matchups seem to predict that, while Huffman could have trouble winning the Republican primary, he would be a much stronger candidate against whomever the Democrats pick.

In general-election matchups, the poll indicates both Giffords and Weiss would beat Republican Graf by about 10 percent. However, when the two leading Democrats were matched up against Huffman, both races were too close to call, falling within the margin of error.

Roughly 17 percent or more of voters in each of those hypothetical cases said they were undecided, and the polling doesn't account for voters who don't vote in primaries but do vote in the general election.

Republicans also seem more likely to cross party lines.

According to the poll, both Graf and Huffman have trouble holding on to the Republican base in a matchup against Giffords, with party support for them dropping below 70 percent. Graf's Republican support sits at 65 percent in a race against Weiss, compared with 75 percent for Huffman in a matchup against the former anchor.

In each race, 400 registered voters who cast ballots in the 2004 primaries were polled by phone. Roughly 10 percent in each group were political independents. The majority — 81 percent — of those polled were from Pima County, 16 percent were from Cochise County and the rest were registered to vote in Pinal and Santa Cruz counties. The combined 800 voters polled for the head-to-head matchups translated to a margin of error of 3.5 percent.

On StarNet: The Arizona primary election is Sept. 12. Use our voter resource guide to access past articles on the 2006 election and for profiles of the candidates in each race. View the guide at azstarnet.com/politics

● Contact reporter Daniel Scarpinato at 807-7789 or dscarpinato@azstarnet.com

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