A new poll from Arizona pollster Behavior Research Center shows President Barack Obama best all possible GOP challengers in the state besides former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. The trial heat breaks 43 – 37 for Romney among registered voters in Arizona, while the President beats former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) by between 8 and 10 points.
From the pollster’s analysis:
There is every possibility the victor in an Obama and Romney race will be determined by a good old fashioned get out the vote effort and a slugfest to see who has most appeal with Independent voters, who compose close to a third of all voters in this state. Democrats are not abandoning Obama. Currently, 77 percent of Democrats are loyal to Obama and only eight percent defect to Romney. At the same time, 80 percent of Republicans favor Romney and only eight percent defect to Obama. Assuming that Democrats and Republicans get their troops to the polls,
the outcome of the presidential election could well be decided by how Independents vote and at this point in time, Romney has a 48 percent to 29 percent lead over Obama and 23 percent sitting the rail among Independents. Obama does very well with younger voters (43%) and gets a powerful 67 percent of the Latino vote. He trails Romney among Caucasian voters, with Romney holding an impressive 49 to 32 percent lead among them.
