ARIZONA

a polling partnership between POLITICO and AARP

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Voters 50 and older in Arizona lean toward Trump

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Driven by continuing political and demographic changes, Arizona is poised to be a major battleground in this year’s midterm elections and a potential swing state in the 2020 presidential race, a new POLITICO poll shows.

Underpinning the state’s shifting politics is a stark generational divide, with older voters far more likely to vote for Republican candidates in this year’s elections, support President Donald Trump and back many of Trump’s signature immigration policies, such as a wall along the Mexican border.

Arizonan 50+ voters more likely to support Trump policies

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Overall, the poll shows Democrats are poised to challenge the GOP’s long-time stranglehold over the state’s politics. Since 1952, only one Democrat — Bill Clinton in 1996 — has won Arizona’s electoral votes, and it’s been a decade since a Democrat won any statewide election in the state.

The state hasn’t been actively contested in the past few elections — but even before Trump took office, there were signs that it would be on the 2020 playing field. Trump’s 2016 margin of victory — 3.5 percentage points — was much closer than Mitt Romney’s 9.1-point win just four years earlier.

The POLITICO poll shows voters haven’t warmed to Trump since then. A majority of voters, 54 percent, disapprove of the job Trump is doing as president, the poll shows. Just 44 percent approve of his job performance.

Among voters 50 and older, a majority approve of Trump. But voters aged 18-49 disapprove of Trump by wide margins.

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The divide extends to the races on this year’s ballot. Three of the state’s nine congressional districts are rated as competitive by The Cook Political Report — two currently held by Republicans, one by Democrats. The poll shows Democrats with a four-point lead in the generic House ballot, 41 percent to 37 percent. But, again, the age divide is wide: Republicans lead by seven points among voters 50 and older; Democrats are ahead by 16 points among voters younger than 50.

Democrats have a slightly larger lead, seven points, in a generic matchup for Senate. Republicans will choose between three candidates in next month’s primary: Rep. Martha McSally or two right-wing candidates, former state Sen. Kelli Ward and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was recently pardoned by Trump following a federal contempt conviction. Democratic Rep. Kyrsten Sinema is expected to be her party’s nominee, though she faces a liberal challenger in the primary.

And Democrats also have a chance to unseat incumbent GOP Gov. Doug Ducey, who is at just 34 percent in a matchup against a generic Democrat (41 percent). The poll did not include Ducey’s primary challenger, former Secretary of State Ken Bennett.

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To its south, Arizona has a 373-mile border with Mexico, and 61 percent of voters in the poll say immigration is very important to them when they cast their vote for federal offices. But that ranks behind health care, Social Security, national security and terrorism, the economy and jobs and Medicare.

Only 44 percent of Arizona voters approve of the way Trump is handling immigration, but a 53 percent majority of voters 50 and older approve of Trump’s handling of the issue.

Overall, more voters say immigration is a good thing for the country (54 percent) than a bad thing (31 percent).

However, voters are split on whether the United States has a responsibility to accept refugees into the country. The issue is divided on party lines: 68 percent of Democrats think the U.S. has a responsibility, but only 24 percent of Republicans do.

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Arizona voters are divided on Trump’s signature immigration issue: a wall along the border with Mexico: 47 percent support building the wall, while 48 percent oppose it. Older and white voters tend to back the border wall, but only 28 percent of Hispanic voters surveyed support building the wall.

Voters in all demographic groups support creating a clear path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who meet certain requirements, but there is also broad support for deporting those immigrants from the U.S. in a separate poll question.

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted June 29-July 9, surveying 1,641 registered voters (toplines, crosstabs), including oversamples of 834 voters 50 and older (toplines, crosstabs) and 494 Hispanic voters (toplines, crosstabs). Interviews were conducted online, in both English and Spanish. The margin of error is plus or minus 2 percentage points for the overall sample, plus or minus 3 percentage points for the oversample of older voters and plus or minus 4 percentage points for the Hispanic oversample.