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issues like immigration and focus on local problems such as the rape-kit backlog. She also praised Penzone’s lawenforcement experience as a former Phoenix police sergeant. She discounted the attack ad on him as not credible “once I heard all the facts.”
“It was just a way of slamming the other person, much like Trump,” she said.
Arpaio campaign spokesman Chad Willems cast doubt on the quality of the Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll.
He said it included too many Democrats and too few independents and did not require respondents to have participated in past elections.
Eric Hedberg, the pollster for the survey, said all respondents reported they were likely to vote Nov. 8. Their answers were weighted to reflect the demographic breakdown of registered Maricopa County voters, he added.
Willems released a poll commissioned by Arpaio’s campaign, which he said better reflected anticipated partisan turnout. That poll indicated the sheriff was leading Penzone 49.5 percent to 42.0 percent.
The campaign’s poll conducted by Conquest Communications reached 400 likely general-election voters who voted in at least two of the past three general elections. It was conducted from Oct. 16-18 and included a 30 percent sample of cellphones. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.9 points.
“These results showing Sheriff Joe winning this race is consistent with what we have seen all along,” said Willems, who previously has said the campaign expects a close race. “These numbers stand in stark contrast from both our opponent’s propaganda and what certain media organizations have been touting.
“The only logical conclusion is The Arizona Republic set out to do a survey in Maricopa County and ‘missed’ and that Sheriff Arpaio is doing relatively well in the city of San Francisco,” Willems said.
Stacy Pearson, spokeswoman for the Penzone campaign, said the results of the Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll reflected “the overwhelming, bipartisan support the campaign is receiving.”
Republic reporter Kelcie Grega contributed to this article. Arizona State University’s Morrison Institute for Public Policy and Cronkite News at ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication for this poll, jointly selecting topics and developing the questions. Behavior Research Center, a Phoenix-based marketing and public-opinion research firm, was hired to collect the data. From Oct. 10 to Oct. 15, poll-takers conducted live telephone interviews, asking questions of likely Arizona voters from across the state. On average, 811 voters responded to each of the poll questions. The voters were identified using an updated voter-registration database, including voters who registered for Arizona’s August primary. The statewide sample was weighted to represent the demographics of Arizona’s registered voters. The sample used phone numbers reported by the registered voters themselves. (Whether the number was for a landline or cellphone is unknown.) If needed, the 27-question survey was conducted in Spanish.