Kelly’s Margin Erodes, Lake Leads in Ariz.; Gov. Lujan Grisham Expands Lead in NM; Candidates Tied in Wisc.

By Jim Ellis — Aug. 31, 2022

Senate

Arizona: Sen. Kelly’s Margin Erodes –– The Trafalgar Group, running a series of polls covering several states, released their numbers for the Arizona Senate race. The survey (Aug. 24-27; 1,074 likely Arizona general election voters; multiple sampling techniques) comes to a different conclusion than the other post-primary polls that have averaged a 12-point advantage for Sen. Mark Kelly (D) among registered voters. According to the Trafalgar numbers, Sen. Kelly’s edge over venture capitalist Blake Masters (R) is only 48-44 percent.

Trafalgar often shows better numbers for Republicans, but says their unique and unreleased polling methodology allows them to better capture the entire electorate. Arguably, Trafalgar has often been correct when arriving at different conclusions than seemingly the rest of the polling community.
In 2020 election’s late stage, 21 polls were conducted from 12 different pollsters of the Arizona Senate race from the beginning of October to the election according to the Real Clear Politics polling archive. Those 21 posted Kelly to a mean average 6.7 percent advantage over then-Sen. Martha McSally (R), but he only won by 2.4 percentage points. The Trafalgar Group, in their lone released 2020 Arizona Senate poll, found the two separated by an accurate two percent.

Governor

Arizona: New Poll Pushes Kari Lake to Lead — The Trafalgar Group’s Arizona poll (see Senate race above) also tested the open governor’s race. Two polls conducted after the state’s Aug. 2 primary gave Democrat Katie Hobbs, the Arizona Secretary of State, leads over former news anchor Kari Lake (R) within the polling margin of error range. On the other hand, Trafalgar posts Lake to her first lead of the general election, 47-46 percent. All of the data suggest that this race is in the toss-up realm.

New Mexico: Gov. Lujan Grisham Expands Lead — The New Mexico based Research & Polling, Inc. company has released new data for the competitive Land of Enchantment governor’s race, the first time since mid-June that we’ve seen new numbers for this campaign.

According to the recently completed survey conducted for the Albuquerque Journal newspaper (Aug. 19-25; 518 likely New Mexico general election voters; live interview), Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) leads former television weatherman Mark Ronchetti (R) by a 47-40 percent count. The ballot test spread is beyond this survey’s polling margin of error of 4.3 percentage points, the latter factor high largely due to the low size of the statewide polling sample. The previous published survey, GQR Research’s June 11-17 study also featuring a low sampling universe of 500 likely voters, posted the governor to a 48-44 percent edge.

Wisconsin: Candidates Tied — The new Trafalgar Group survey (Aug. 22-25; 1,091 likely Wisconsin general election voters; multiple sampling techniques) projects that the Wisconsin governor’s race, always predicted to be tight, has already fallen into a tie. The Trafalgar results see Gov. Tony Evers (D) and businessman Tim Michels (R) each attracting 47 percent of the sample’s respondents. Such a result is not surprising. Wisconsin routinely features very close statewide elections, and the current governor and Senate campaigns will certainly fall within the established Badger State electoral pattern.