Incumbent Martha McSally put a dent in Mark Kelly’s lead, but the Republican still trails her Democratic challenger by a hefty 9 percentage points in the race to retain her Senate seat representing Arizona, according to a new poll.
The survey from OH Predictive Insights, unveiled Tuesday, showed Kelly leading McSally 52% to 43% on the strength of voter support in Arizona’s two dominant suburban counties — Maricopa, which includes metropolitan Phoenix, and Pima, home to greater Tucson. Kelly’s support among Democrats is bigger than McSally’s support among Republicans, and the former astronaut leads the senator among voters unaffiliated with either party 59% to 32%.
The slice of good news for McSally in this poll, conducted July 6-7? She trailed Kelly by 13 points in the last poll from OH Predictive Insights — and continues to hold a broad advantage in Arizona’s rural counties.
“Coming back from a 9-point deficit less than four months from Election Day is not going to be an easy feat for McSally,” Jacob Joss, an OH Predictive Insights analyst, said in a statement. “But for now, she appears at least to have pulled out of her tailspin and is headed on the right trajectory.”
Arizona is an emerging battleground in the presidential contest, with presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden threatening to upend President Trump there — a victory that would be the first for his party in the state since the mid-1990s. Biden leads Trump in Arizona by 2.8 points in the RealClearPolitics average of recent polling. The dynamic in the race for the White House is proving to be an obstacle for McSally.
McSally was appointed to her seat in January 2019 by Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to fill a vacancy following the death of John McCain. McSally assumed office just a few months after losing her campaign for an open Senate seat to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. Kelly, husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords, is outperforming Sinema among key demographic groups — women, self-described moderates, and whites.
However, McSally, a former Air Force combat pilot, has seen a rise in support from conservative men. The OH Predictive Insights poll surveyed likely voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 points.
