AZ-01: North Star Opinion Research (R): Kirkpatrick favored.

[Miles]

Full release.

The strangest thing here is that McCain won the new CD1 51-48; this has Romney winning 58-35...and Kirkpatrick is still ahead.

Ann Kirkpatrick (D)- 46%
Jonathan Paton (R)- 43%

400 LV, 4.9% MoE

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Paton may have a chance, more so the even Gosar would have had in this seat in my opinion.

[Miles]

Paton may have a chance, more so the even Gosar would have had in this seat in my opinion.

Why's that?

The seat went from 44% Obama to 48%.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Paton may have a chance, more so the even Gosar would have had in this seat in my opinion.

Why's that?

The seat went from 44% Obama to 48%.

You don't get what I am driving at. I am talking with the seat as drawn for 2012, Gosar skipped out for the fourth rather than stand for reelection here. Paton is in my opinon a stronger candidate then Gosar would have been if he stayed.

[Talleyrand]

If this is the poll Paton has released to show he has a chance of winning, it makes his campaign and his chances look ridiculous.

First off, he has Romney up 23 in a district McCain won by 3. I understand that this year is more Republican than 2008, but there's no way Romney is going to over-perform McCain by 10 points. And don't forget the home state effect McCain had too.

Second, this shows Kirkpatrick running 11 points ahead of Obama and Paton running 13 points behind Romney. If this is anywhere close to the truth, it shows Kirkpatrick is an extremely strong candidate and Paton is quite poor.

While this entire poll looks like junk to me, if this is the best Paton can do to show he can win, he's pretty screwed in November.

[mondale84]

If this is the poll Paton has released to show he has a chance of winning, it makes his campaign and his chances look ridiculous.

First off, he has Romney up 23 in a district McCain won by 3. I understand that this year is more Republican than 2008, but there's no way Romney is going to over-perform McCain by 10 points. And don't forget the home state effect McCain had too.

Second, this shows Kirkpatrick running 11 points ahead of Obama and Paton running 13 points behind Romney. If this is anywhere close to the truth, it shows Kirkpatrick is an extremely strong candidate and Paton is quite poor.

While this entire poll looks like junk to me, if this is the best Paton can do to show he can win, he's pretty screwed in November.

Completely agree, TexasDemocrat. There's no way that Romney is up 23 on Obama in a district Obama lost by 3, not a chance. No, no, a thousand times no.

Paton doesn't stand a chance.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Second, this shows Kirkpatrick running 11 points ahead of Obama and Paton running 13 points behind Romney. If this is anywhere close to the truth, it shows Kirkpatrick is an extremely strong candidate and Paton is quite poor.

While this entire poll looks like junk to me, if this is the best Paton can do to show he can win, he's pretty screwed in November.

No and here is why.

This is not the district he ran in back in 2010. Therefore most of it is not familiar with him. The case the poll is making, largely aimed at potential donors, is one that all he has to do is rally the undecided Romney voters to win this seat and the key to that is getting his message out and making himself known.

Having standards of criteria to apply to these internals is great, but you can't apply them without considering atleast certain local considerations involving the race.

[minionofmidas]

This is not the district he ran in back in 2010. Therefore most of it is not familiar with him.

Paton's from the Tucson area bits that have been added to the district in exchange for Yavapai County,.
That in itself makes him very much an ill-suited candidate for most of the district.

[Mr.Phips]

The fact that Kirkpatrick lost by just six points in a much worse district in an awful year for Democrats makes me think that she will probably win easily here. 

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

This is not the district he ran in back in 2010. Therefore most of it is not familiar with him.

Paton's from the Tucson area bits that have been added to the district in exchange for Yavapai County,.
That in itself makes him very much an ill-suited candidate for most of the district.

Keep in mind what I am saying. I am saying he is better than Gosar as a candidate, not that he will win. Gosar was better known to most of this district but felt himself that he was so inferior to the task of winning it that he skedaddled to the fourth.

[minionofmidas]

Gosar was an unknown before he ran in 2010, an accidental wave-created Congressman if ever there was one - quite unlike Kirkpatrick two years previously, she was a lState Rep (for a district entirely within the CD, thus in AZ making up more than a quarter of it) and had the (old, sans Tucson) district's diverse voter bases ridiculously well covered. He wouldn't have liked his chances in a rematch on the old lines, nevermind the new more Democratic district that now includes territory in Southern Arizona that he has even less linkage to than Kirkpatrick. I can understand why he fled to an open, safe R new seat, although given that his longterm home was not removed or anything close to, it was quite the brazen move.

What I fail to see is how that relates to your claim that is Paton a better candidate than the incumbent would have been. He's not exactly a sacrificial lamb, but he's hardly a top-tier candidate. (But unless I missed something, he's still easily the biggest of the four names seeking the R nomination.)