Some very interesting polling coming out in AZ from Democratic Senate candidate Rodney Glassman, by way of The Political Carnival:

McCain is vulnerable as a majority of voters in Arizona dislike him, disapprove of the job he is doing as U.S. Senator, and are not inclined to vote to re-elect him. This provides an opportunity for Rodney Glassman to defeat the 28-year incumbent. [...]

Even if McCain can pull out a victory, this bodes well for Glassman’s campaign prospects.

Most incumbents who lose in the general election had previously faced a contentious primary election. The fact that McCain is going through a bruising primary that will likely remain close means he will come out of the primary with a fractured base, higher negatives, and a much smaller war chest than when he started. This is a formula for success for Rodney Glassman’s campaign as a challenger to a long-time incumbent.

McCain is under 50 percent in the polls on multiple measurements:

McCain is under 50 percent in the horserace vote against J.D. Hayworth among Republican primary voters in three (3) separate surveys. [...]

McCain is already under 50 percent against Rodney Glassman in a general election match-up. –McCain draws 48% to 35% for Glassman in the DailyKos/Research 2000 poll conducted in April.

The margin is similar in the PPP poll – 49% for McCain to 33% for Glassman.

Might be a good time to dust off your copy of Cliff Schecter's The Real McCain.

Some very interesting polling coming out in AZ from Democratic Senate candidate Rodney Glassman, by way of The Political Carnival:

McCain is vulnerable as a majority of voters in Arizona dislike him, disapprove of the job he is doing as U.S. Senator, and are not inclined to vote to re-elect him. This provides an opportunity for Rodney Glassman to defeat the 28-year incumbent. [...]

Even if McCain can pull out a victory, this bodes well for Glassman’s campaign prospects.

Most incumbents who lose in the general election had previously faced a contentious primary election. The fact that McCain is going through a bruising primary that will likely remain close means he will come out of the primary with a fractured base, higher negatives, and a much smaller war chest than when he started. This is a formula for success for Rodney Glassman’s campaign as a challenger to a long-time incumbent.

McCain is under 50 percent in the polls on multiple measurements:

McCain is under 50 percent in the horserace vote against J.D. Hayworth among Republican primary voters in three (3) separate surveys. [...]

McCain is already under 50 percent against Rodney Glassman in a general election match-up. –McCain draws 48% to 35% for Glassman in the DailyKos/Research 2000 poll conducted in April.

The margin is similar in the PPP poll – 49% for McCain to 33% for Glassman.

Might be a good time to dust off your copy of Cliff Schecter's The Real McCain.

Some very interesting polling coming out in AZ from Democratic Senate candidate Rodney Glassman, by way of The Political Carnival:

McCain is vulnerable as a majority of voters in Arizona dislike him, disapprove of the job he is doing as U.S. Senator, and are not inclined to vote to re-elect him. This provides an opportunity for Rodney Glassman to defeat the 28-year incumbent. [...]

Even if McCain can pull out a victory, this bodes well for Glassman’s campaign prospects.

Most incumbents who lose in the general election had previously faced a contentious primary election. The fact that McCain is going through a bruising primary that will likely remain close means he will come out of the primary with a fractured base, higher negatives, and a much smaller war chest than when he started. This is a formula for success for Rodney Glassman’s campaign as a challenger to a long-time incumbent.

McCain is under 50 percent in the polls on multiple measurements:

McCain is under 50 percent in the horserace vote against J.D. Hayworth among Republican primary voters in three (3) separate surveys. [...]

McCain is already under 50 percent against Rodney Glassman in a general election match-up. –McCain draws 48% to 35% for Glassman in the DailyKos/Research 2000 poll conducted in April.

The margin is similar in the PPP poll – 49% for McCain to 33% for Glassman.

Might be a good time to dust off your copy of Cliff Schecter's The Real McCain.

It turns out turning hard to the right might not actually be great politics.

55% of voters disapprove of McCain to just 34% who give him good marks. When PPP polled Arizona in September he was at a positive 48/42 approval spread, so he's dropped 27 points on the margin since that time.

Looking into the internals (.pdf) of the poll, it's quite clear that John McCain's pandering to the hard right isn't really buying him any friends. Since the fall, McCain's approval rating among Republicans has fallen from 65 percent to 48 percent -- yet now more Arizonans overall view McCain as too conservative (35 percent) than too liberal (28 percent). Although McCain still leads in a head-to-head against Democratic Tucson city councilor Rodney Glassman, he is now under 50 percent despite the fact that the vast majority of Arizonans, like me, are unfamiliar with the Democratic candidate. How McCain manages to navigate this mess is yet unclear to me.

Check out the latest Research 2000 polling commissioned by Daily Kos of 600 likely Arizona voters in the field October 28 through October 30.

If the election for President were held today would you vote for the Democratic ticket of Barack Obama and Joe Biden the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin or another candidate?

McCain-Palin: 48 percent (42 percent of those already voting)
Obama-Biden: 47 percent (54 percent of those already voting)

If the 2010 election for U.S. Senate were held today for whom would you vote for if the choices were between Janet Napolitano the Democrat and John McCain the Republican?

John McCain (R): 45 percent
Janet Napolitano (D): 53 percent

That's right -- John McCain is just about tied in his home state, and if his 2010 reelection bid were today and were he running against Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano he would lose.

Don't believe these numbers? The McCain campaign apparently does, because they have scheduled McCain to campaign in Arizona ahead of election day.

Sen. John McCain will be in Prescott on election eve, according to the Yavapai County Republican Party.

He plans to attend the party's annual Victory Rally at approximately 9 p.m. Monday on the historic courthouse plaza. The rally starts at 6 p.m. and typically attracts Republican elected officials from around the state.

With rumors that Barack Obama will touch down for a brief stop to stump in Arizona before election day and now hard news that the Obama campaign would be running this ad in Arizona (along with North Dakota and Georgia), we now have reason to believe that the race in the state may actually be edging towards "tossup" status (even as it likely still leans a bit towards the Republicans).

There's more...