Arizona Governor Race

Race of the Day

August 1, 2006
98 Days until Election Day


Arizona Governor


Status: Democrat Incumbent
2004 Presidential Result: Red State (West)


Outlook: Likely Democrat


In 2002, Democrat Janet Napolitano was the benefactor of winning a close three-way race to become the Governor of a traditionally Republican leaning state which had not elected a Democrat as Governor in several cycles.

Many anticipated a spirited challenge against her when she ran for reelection in 2006, but Napolitano has managed to remain fairly popular in her state and the strongest possible candidates all declined to take a chance of challenging here.

Nowadays, conventional wisdom holds that Napolitano is a very likely bet to win a second term and go on to be someone whose name is mentioned in the context of national political ambitions. Most polls show the Governor with a solid double digit lead over the two remaining main Republican candidates competing for their party’s nomination. Those two candidates are Republican activist Don Goldwater, who has the virtue of name recognition due to his legendary late uncle Barry Goldwater and conservative activist and attorney Len Munsil.

A third Republican candidate, investment banker Mike Harris has recently undertaken some bad publicity for matters related to child support payments and for also engaging in innuendo about the personal life of the never-married Governor. Harris is not expected to be able to possibly capture the GOP nomination.

The candidate perceives as the frontrunner to face Napolitano is Goldwater, due primarily to the name recognition factor. For his part, Goldwater endured some controversy after he was quoted out of context in a statement that seemed to suggest that illegal immigrants should be put in work labor camps.

There is likely to be little interest in this primary but the question to be answered is if Goldwater’s name recognition will be enough to hold off what seems to be a devoted core of conservative supporters for Munsil.

One potential political pratfall for Napolitano is the issue of illegal immigration, which polling places as the issue most on the minds of voters in that border state. The Republican candidates will certainly try to get to the right of her on the issue, but she feels that she has taken steps to also appear tough on the matter.

On the surface, it would appear that Napolitano should be classified as “safe”, in spite of the political nature of Arizona. However, an interesting wrinkle happens to be the online Zogby polls sponsored by the Wall Street Journal. While many political pundits of all persuasions dismiss the methodology used in the polls as being untested, they have consistently shown a pretty close race for Napolitano in Arizona, with her being unable to reach the 50 percent plateau. The most recent example of that poll shows here with just an 8 point lead over Goldwater, and a 12 point lead over Munsil.

Even Republicans though are likely to be very skeptical of those numbers, but if Election Night brings a much closer than expected result in the Grand Canyon State, the one person who may be smiling the widest and believing he is on the path to reputation rehabilitation might be pollster John Zogby.


Arizona Republican Party link:

http://www.azgop.org




2006 Governor races predicted thus far: 1 D, 2 R
List of post-election Governors predicted thus far: 9 D, 8 R