Legislative District 3 Voting History

VOTING HISTORY

When the Independent Redistricting Commission drew boundaries of LD-3 in 2002, the historical partisan voting pattern in the district was 56 percent Republican and 44 per-cent Democrat. In the 2004 presidential election, Bush did substantially better than this, outpolling Kerry in the district 64 percent to 35 percent. In 2008 McCain outperformed Bush, getting almost 66 percent to Obama’s 32.5 percent. McCain’s 33-point margin of victory was the second-largest in the state (the margin in District 5 was more than 37 points. The influx of retired persons in the past 20 years has reinforced Republican political strength. Registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by 15 percent, making this a reliably Republican district. It has elected only Republicans to the Legislature since 2002.

In the 2006 gubernatorial election, although Munsil did well against Napolitano (fifth best of all legislative districts), he lost to her by 13.5 percentage points.

The more expansive version of the marriage amendment won in this district in 2006 by 13 percentage points. In 2008, with a 45 percent bigger turnout, the narower version of the amendment was approved by 33 percent of voters.

This district delivered the largest margin of victory (almost 72 percent) for the 2006 constitutional amendment prohibiting illegal immigrants from receiving punitive damage awards in state court. The district with the next-largest margin was District 19 with 65.4 percent supporting.

FINAL ANALYSIS

Before 2004, this district seemed to favor moderate Republicans. That year’s class of legislators (Gould, Groe and McLain) was much more conservative. Although Groe and McLain had primary challengers in 2006, they were re-nominated easily and far out-distanced their sole Democrat opponent in the general. Gould was unopposed in the primary and, in the general, easily beat the Democrat, who had gained ballot status as a write-in during the primary.

Groe was arrested for DUI on March 22, 2007. She originally faced a class 4 felony count of aggravated DUI and a misdemeanor count of making a false statement to a police officer. She voluntarily checked into rehab and eventually took a plea deal in which she was charged with a misdemeanor DUI, avoiding having to resign from office. However, she did not survive the 2008 primary, losing to Doris Goodale, who had finished fourth in a four-person primary in 2006.

Illegal immigration, reducing the size of government and lower taxes are the issues that resonate with voters in this district.