AZ Policy Wonk

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio received a high approval rating in the most recent Cronkite/Eight poll.

Sixty-one percent of Maricopa County voters said they approve or strongly approve of his job performance. Thirty-four percent disapprove or strongly disapprove.

It’s one of those love-him-or-hate-him kinds of things, as most voters logged in with a “strongly” response. Thirty-nine percent said they strongly approve of the job he’s doing, while 22 percent strongly disapproved. Four percent said they had no opinion.

The poll was conducted Oct. 22-25 by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University and Eight/KAET.

Also, county voters disagreed overwhelmingly with the federal government’s decision to strip the sheriff’s department of a portion of its 287(g) agreement that allowed deputies to enforce U.S. immigration law during crime-suppression sweeps. Sixty percent disagreed with the decision, while 36 percent agreed. Again, four percent said they had no opinion.

An analysis that was released along with the poll results noted, however, that “Republicans, people with lower levels of formal education, and social conservatives were most supportive of the sheriff; Democrats, voters with higher levels of formal education, and social moderates were least supportive.”

The poll also gauged voters’ approval ratings for Treasurer Dean Martin, Secretary of State Ken Bennett, Attorney General Terry Goddard, Gov. Jan Brewer and Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas.

Not only that, but respondents were asked about swine flu and national health care reform. Full results are below.

The statewide sample of 652 registered voters was 37 percent Republican, 34 percent Democrat and 29 percent Independent. Fifty-nine percent of the interviews were conducted in Maricopa County, 17 percent in Pima County and 24 percent in Arizona’s other counties. Forty-nine percent of the voters interviewed were men and 51 percent are women. The sampling error for the statewide sample survey is plus or minus 3.8 percent. The sampling error for the Maricopa County sample, which included 389 registered voters, is plus or minus 5.0 percent.

Question wording:

First, please tell me if you approve or disapprove of the job the following Arizona state-level officials are doing. If you don’t feel you know enough about how they are doing to have an opinion, just tell me and I’ll go on to the next one. Let’s start with Governor Jan Brewer. Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job she is doing?

 Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve    2%     2%
 approve   37%   48%
 disapprove   30%   39%
 strongly disapprove    9%   11%
 don’t know/no opinion 22%   

How about the job Terry Goddard is doing as attorney general?  Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job he is doing?

Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve  11%   15%
 approve   44%   61%
 disapprove   13%   18%
 strongly disapprove    4%     6%
 don’t know/no opinion 28%  

What about the job Ken Bennett is doing as secretary of state?  Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job he is doing?

 Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve    1%     3%
 approve   19%   61%
 disapprove     9%   30%
 strongly disapprove    2%     6%
 don’t know/no opinion 69%  

How about the job Dean Martin is doing as state treasurer?  Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job he is doing?

 Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve    7%   14%
 approve   25%   50%
 disapprove    15%   31%
 strongly disapprove    3%     5%
 don’t know/no opinion 50%   

How important do you think it is for Congress to vote this year on a bill to reform our health care system? Do you think it is very important, important, not very important, or not at all important?

 very important   48%
 important   19%
 not very important  11%
 not at all important  19%
 don’t know/no opinion   3%

Would you favor or oppose creating a public health insurance option administered by the federal government that would compete with plans offered by private insurance companies?

favor    44%
oppose    49%
don’t know/no opinion   7%

Now, turning to the swine flu, when a vaccination becomes readily available in Arizona, will you get a swine flu vaccination?

 yes    41%
 no    54%
 don’t know/no opinion   5%

Regardless of how you feel about getting a swine flu vaccination, have you had or will you have a regular flu shot this year?
yes    58%
no    41%
don’t know/no opinion   1%

IF MARICOPA COUNTY:  Please tell me if you approve or disapprove of the job the following Maricopa County officials are doing. Again, if you don’t have enough information about how they are doing to rate them, just tell me and I’ll go to the next person. Let’s start with County Attorney Andrew Thomas. Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove (9%/14) of the job he is doing?

 Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve  12%   17%
 approve   32%   47%
 disapprove   14%   22%
 strongly disapprove    9%   14%
 don’t know/no opinion 33%  

IF MARICOPA COUNTY:  How about the job Sheriff Joe Arpaio is doing.  Do you strongly approve, approve, disapprove or strongly disapprove of the job he is doing?

 Overall / Among those with an opinion
 strongly approve  39%   41%
 approve   22%   23%
 disapprove   13%   14%
 strongly disapprove  22%   22%
 don’t know/no opinion   4%  

IF MARICOPA COUNTY:  Under an agreement with the federal government, the Maricopa County sheriff’s department has had the authority to arrest illegal immigrants in the community and to screen the immigration status of people booked into the county jail. Recently, the federal government restricted Sheriff Arpaio to ONLY checking the immigration status of people when they are checked into jail. Do you agree or disagree with the decision to limit Arpaio’s immigration authority?

 agree    36% 
 disagree   60% 
 don’t know/no opinion   4%

The Democratic National Committee has decided it’s time to call out Sen. Jon Kyl for his statements on the health care legislation.

The “Call ‘Em Out” campaign now has three targets - all of them high-profile Republicans. The first two were U.S. Rep. John Boehner and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. Boehner is the House minority leader, and Pawlenty is rumored to be a future presidential candidate. Kyl is the Senate minority whip.

Democrats have called out Kyl for four specific statements he’s made regarding how the health care proposal would impact Americans.

No. 1: Democrats dispute the idea that government would not be put in control of health care.

No. 2: They dispute the statement that health insurance reform would cut Medicare and lead to rationing.

No 3.: They say it’s false that health insurance reform would be hugely costly.

No. 4: And they take issue with the idea that comparative effectiveness research would lead to rationing and denial of care.

Each of the arguments and background is long and tedious, so I’m not going to go into it all here. But you can read the full text of the Democrat charges at http://www.democrats.org/page/content/callemoutkyl. There’s also a YouTube video that can be accessed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBdRs7VRu8c.

Kyl’s spokesman Andrew Wilder noted in an e-mail this morning that he hesitates to dignify the attacks with a response. But he did anyway. He stated that “Slick graphics don’t hide the fact that the Democratic National Committee has to misrepresent the facts of their government-run health care takeover to the American people in order to get it passed.” He also pointed out that “support for ObamaCare has sunk to a new all-time low of only 41 percent in favor.” He cited a recent poll by Rasmussen, which can be found at http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/healthcare/september_2009/health_care_reform

To see what Kyl says about health care and what he wants to do on the issue, check out the following recent columns the senator has authored:

http://kyl.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=318341

http://kyl.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=317730 

http://kyl.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=316972 

http://kyl.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=315950