Confirming indications of a building Republican "wave" this
fall, polls now
show Democrat Rep. Raul Grijalva in a dead-heat with his
little-known challenger in Arizona's 7th District.
Politico reports that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus is
now directing campaign cash to help Grijalva against insurgent GOP
candidate Ruth McClung.
A big part of Grijalva's problem is that earlier this year, the
incumbent Democrat
joined those calling for a boycott of Arizona after the state
passed a tough law aimed at curbing illegal immigration. Grijalva
may have expected that stance would endear him with voters in
the 7th District -- where about half of voters are Hispanic --
but it appears to have backfired disastrously. Polls show the
Arizona law is popular, while Grijalva's support for a boycott
was seen as harmful to the economy of a district suffering
with high unemployment.
Fifty percent of 7th District voters say they're ready to
dump Grijalva, while McClung -- an attractive young physicist
who works for a
rocket engineering firm -- has begun capturing national
attention.
Late Sunday night, I spoke to a Republican pollster in Arizona
who had conducted a 7th District poll early last week and couldn't
believe the result: McClung actually leading by 2
percentage points. So he polled the district again and got similar
results. Now those surprising findings have
been confirmed by the Magellan
Strategies poll that struck alarm among Democrats. Independents
in the district are breaking strongly toward the Republican, a Tea
Party favorite who is also supported by about a fifth of
voters who identify as Democrats.
Polls indicating a surge for McClung have had an important
effect: Arizona's two Republican senators, John McCain and John
Kyl, have reportedly started directing campaign donations and
other resources toward the 7th District campaign. Within the next
week, McClung's candidacy is expected to gain $100,000 worth of
Republican support, in addition to a steadily increasing stream of
online
small-donor contributions from grassroots conservatives eager
to defeat Grijalva, who is co-chairman of the Progressive
Caucus.
topics:
Election 2010
