Poll: Ducey with big lead

Education most pressing issue, respondents say

Gov. Doug Ducey has a strong lead over challenger David Garcia in the governor race, a poll by Suffolk University and The Arizona Republic found.

Doug Ducey has a commanding lead over Democratic challenger David Garcia in the race for Arizona’s top job, a poll by Suffolk University and The Arizona Republic found.

Ducey leads Garcia by a nearly 12point margin, according to the survey of voters.

Nearly 50 percent of those surveyed chose the Republican incumbent, while Garcia trailed with 38 percent. Almost 10 percent of those polled said they were undecided.

The survey of 500 likely registered voters was taken by live operators and conducted by Suffolk University in Boston for The Republic. Operators spoke to respondents Sept. 27-30 and called both cellphones and landlines.

The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Ducey performed best among men, dominating Garcia with 60 percent support against Garcia’s 30 percent. Garcia won among women, besting Ducey by 6 percentage points.

Forty-three percent of women cited education as the most important issue in the governor’s race. Among men, education was also the top issue at 29 percent, followed by the economy. Border security, a central theme of Ducey’s campaign ads, was not an option for that question.

The governor had a favorability rating of 49.6 percent — the same percentage of respondents who said they would support him in the general election.

Slightly fewer respondents, about 44 percent, said Arizona was on the right track under his leadership.

“I’ve been pleased with the job he has done so far,” Mesa resident Jack Carreno, 66, said in a post-poll interview with The Republic. “I think it’s challenging because it’s so partisan right now, so it’s hard to get things done. But I think he’s getting things done.”

Carreno, a Democrat in the process of reregistering as a Republican,said he voted for Ducey four years ago and wants to “see him get four more years and start working” on infrastructure and public-education funding.

Jake Rolph, 34, of Mesa also pointed to public-education funding as a key issue. The Republican said Ducey’s handling of the massive teacher walkout this spring, which culminated in a plan to give 20 percent raises to teachers by the year 2020, earned his support.

“To me, he got something done,” Rolph said. “I know it took a while, but in the end, he got something passed through, and I feel like that’s something that we really needed instead of just juggling it around and putting it off.”

The governor has made “securing Arizona’s future” the theme of his re-election campaign, referring to both the border and Arizona’s economy.

Garcia, an Army veteran and Arizona State University professor, has focused on education plans.

He has traveled the state in a converted school bus, hoping to harness the energy of the #RedForEd community that protested the state’s lack of public-education funding this spring.

“He has been very active in pursuing a better place for education in Arizona for many, many years,” said Rae ConelGov. ley, a 57-year-old Garcia supporter from Glendale.

The Democrat said charter-school oversight, an area where Garcia has long pushed for reform, “is also a huge concern of mine.”

Garcia has called his campaign “people-powered” and is relying on a grassroots network of volunteers. He has said he is counting on young and minority voters energized by the prospect of electing Arizona’s first Latino governor in 40 years.

Garcia’s position on immigration — that the country needs a reformed, humane system — has earned him fans and critics alike.

The Republican Governors Association has committed $9.2 million to television ads supporting Ducey and attacking Garcia, slamming the Democrat’s comments about imagining “no wall in Southern Arizona” and defunding Ducey’s multiagency Border Strike Force.

Garcia said his comment about the wall, made at the progressive NetRoots conference in New Orleans, was about opposing the wall proposed by President Donald Trump, not taking down existing border structures.

Still, the ads swayed Randi Diskin, 36, a Republican who lives in Bagdad.

“It sounds like his approach to immigration is not very structured,” said Diskin, who said she will vote for Ducey. “… Because of the ads, it’s almost like he’s avoiding the conversation on the tough things that need to happen because we’re a border state.”

The TV spots had the opposite effect on Glendale resident Marina Lang, 24, an independent who called them smears.

Lang said that “people that are campaigning against (Garcia) are really willing to say anything to get a vote.” She said she was backing the Democrat because “we need some major changes as a state.”

“I am a woman of color, and right now it’s kind of scary to live in Arizona,” she said.

Sandi Draper, a 65-year-old Democrat from Mesa, said she believes “there’s definitely a middle ground between wide-open borders and a border wall.” “The wall just seems like a waste of money,” she said. “(Ducey’s) alignment with President Trump in terms of the border wall — that’s just a total turnoff to me.”

Garcia has not been able to match Ducey on the airwaves. He had $147,200 on hand as of his last campaign finance report, while Ducey had more than $3 million.

The Republic poll shows Ducey with the largest lead of any survey released after the August primary election.

An NBC News/Marist poll conducted in late September showed Ducey with a 10-point lead over Garcia among likely voters. A Fox News poll released in midSeptember showed Ducey with an 11point lead.

Other polls have indicated a tighter race. One of those, conducted in late August by North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling on behalf of Garcia’s campaign, showed the race virtually tied, with 44 percent of voters preferring Ducey and 43 percent backing Garcia.

A CNN poll released in mid-September showed Garcia trailing Ducey by 3 percentage points, within the margin of error. An Emerson College poll released in late September showed Garcia within 4 points of Ducey, again within the poll’s margin of error.