New Arizona Republic poll projects who’s ahead in Kelly-Masters Senate race

PHOENIX - U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly has opened a 7 percentage point lead over Blake Masters, his Republican challenger, according to a new poll of likely voters conducted for The Arizona Republic.

With early voting set to start Oct. 12, Democrat Kelly leads Masters 49% to 42%, with 7% undecided in a race long seen as one of the most pivotal in determining control of the Senate.

Perhaps most notably, Kelly leads Masters among independent voters, 51%-36%, with 11% in that group still undecided. He also has narrow, but meaningful, support from Republicans, too.

Kelly’s overall lead is approaching an outright majority in the poll, conducted Sept. 21-25 via cell and landline phone interviews with 500 state residents by Suffolk University for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus 4.4 percentage points.

Arizona governor's race: New poll shows tight contest between Hobbs, Lake

“Mark Kelly is really well-positioned, according to the data,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston. 

“In the case of Arizona, because of the current party registration, you really have to be competitive among independents. Kelly’s strength is pronounced among independents in Arizona. … To me, that’s the linchpin of this snapshot in time.”

Democrats are trying to overcome generally unfavorable views among independents of President Joe Biden and concern about inflation. But Kelly leads with independent women 58% to 29%, a group that also views abortion rights as a top issue, the poll found.

Kelly strongly condemned the Supreme Court’s June ruling erasing federally protected abortion rights. Masters praised the ruling and supports Arizona’s state-level ban on abortion in most cases after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

In their own words: Kelly, Masters answer Republic's questions on policy, style

Masters not closing gap, poll shows

Other publicly available polling in the Arizona Senate race consistently has shown Kelly leading by mid- to high single-digit margins. Kelly’s 7-point lead in The Republic’s poll is in line with polling averages by Real Clear Politics and FiveThirtyEight, both of which show Kelly leading by about 7 percentage points.

Taken as a whole, The Republic’s poll suggests that as September winds down, Masters has not appreciably closed the gap with Kelly since clinching the Republican nomination over his four GOP challengers in early August.

Masters, a first-time candidate, defeated his conservative competition principally with $15 million in support from his mentor, billionaire Peter Thiel, and the endorsement of former President Donald Trump.

But Trump’s blessing has limited appeal to the independents needed to win a general election, and Thiel seemingly has withheld additional large-scale funding for Masters’ efforts entering the decisive final weeks before voting ends on Nov. 8.

The Republic’s poll found Kelly has consolidated support within his party to a greater extent than Masters and is solidly ahead with independent voters. 

Mark Polacek of Lake Havasu City is an independent backing Kelly, whom he views as “the lesser of two evils.” 

“The things I hear from Blake Masters, it just doesn’t sound American. It sounds like he’s anti-American on everything. There’s just too many things I can’t see eye-to-eye with the man,” Polacek said. He noted that Kelly hasn’t accomplished much in two years in Washington but seems to at least try to talk to the other side. 

Among Democrats, Kelly has the support of 92%, compared with 3% who said they planned to vote for Masters. By comparison, 10% of Republican voters said they plan to vote for Kelly, while 83% plan to vote for Masters.

Candidates' favorability rankings differ

Those who participated in The Republic’s poll reported their views of the Senate candidates largely mirrored their expected vote in the race. 

Just shy of half, 49%, said they had a favorable view of Kelly. At the same time, 41% had an unfavorable view of Kelly, who was first elected in a 2020 special election to complete the final two years of the term won in 2016 by the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

For Masters, the numbers are nearly inverted, with 40% holding a favorable view of him and 47% having an unfavorable view. 

Importantly, a narrow slice of the expected electorate is still undecided about the contenders. 

For Kelly, 8% were undecided about their view of him, and 2% said they had never heard of him. About 6% of respondents were undecided about Masters and nearly 7% had never heard of him.

Governors' endorsement: Doug Ducey, Jan Brewer, Fife Symington back Blake Masters

Incumbent holds major cash advantage

Kelly has long enjoyed a substantial cash advantage over his Republican challengers, with nearly $25 million in available cash as of mid-July. At that time, Masters had $1.6 million and still needed to finish securing the GOP nomination.

A more recent financial picture of the two candidates won’t be known until later in October, when both campaigns detail their efforts through the end of September. 

One thing that has become clear during the past two months, however, is a Republican pullback in campaign spending in the race. A political action committee aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., canceled millions in previously reserved spending in Arizona. That happened after the National Republican Senatorial Committee scaled back its budget in Arizona, too.

Some new spending has replaced part of what was lost, but overall Republicans and their allies have not offset the advantage Kelly and his Democratic allies have had in making their case to voters on screens and mailers across Arizona.

Reach the reporter Ronald J. Hansen at ronald.hansen@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4493. Follow him on Twitter @ronaldjhansen.