A statewide telephone poll of likely Arizona voters shows a temporary 1-cent sales tax to help shore up the state budget would have a good chance of passing. But those same voters wouldn’t elect Gov. Jan Brewer to a full term if the 2010 general election were held today.
The poll was commissioned by Mesa real estate magnet Wil Cardon, apparently in a bid to boost Cardon’s own potential candidacy for governor or some other statewide office. (In a news release, Scottsdale political strategist Jason Rose floats state treasurer or chairman of the Arizona Republican Party as other possibilities).
The poll surveyed 602 voters who had cast ballots in the past two statewide primary or general elections. Campaign strategists consider this type of sampling to be more reliable than other polls that sample all Arizonans or all registered voters. You can see the full results here, but I’ll pull out a few highlights:
* Voters narrowly favored passage of the temporary sales tax increase at 49 percent in favor and 43 percent against. That’s within the poll’s margin of error of 4 percent. But toss in the fact that these voters identified funding for K-12 education and resolving state budget as two of the state’s three top pressing concerns, and you can see that a sales tax definitely could pass. Only a handful of those survey were concerned about tax reductions, which has been a top priority for Republicans who control the Legislature.
* Brewer’s political fortunes would seem closely tied to that sales tax proposal. But this sampling of voters found much unhappiness with the governor’s performance. Only 18 percent said they would vote for her in 2010 and 45 percent said they are likely to vote for someone else.
* Who might that someone else be? Well, the poll also asked respondents to consider the potential challengers by job title or political experience (no names were used). “A successful businessman with a young family” got the most picks at 42 percent, which is exactly the description that Cardon would use in a statewide campaign. The next closest were “a former state senate president and secretary of state” (Ken Bennett) at 27 percent, and “an incumbent Attorney General” (Terry Goddard) at 12 percent.
* The poll also found strong support for a flat income tax (although the wording of the question appears slanted to support that proposal’s most favorable arguments) and expanding term limits to require politicians to sit out for two years before they could run for a new office. But the poll respondents were opposed to stripping lawmakers of the pay ($24,000 a year plus expenses) or to going to one legislative session every two years as the Texas Legislature does.
Coming this weekend: Read Austin Hill’s interview with Paradise Valley Mayor Vernon Parker, who is also considering a run for governor as a Republican in 2010. In the Tribune Opinion section.
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