Today, Fix Our Senate released new polling of Arizona voters conducted by Lake Research. The results of the poll aligned with other recent polling showing a collapse in support for Sen. Sinema among Democrats, broad concern that she isn’t listening to her constituents, and growing support for filibuster reform that would allow the Senate to protect voting rights.
Some highlights from the poll (read the full memo from Lake Research here):
- Arizona voters’ support for filibuster reform has increased 15 points since July. They are now net-positive towards reform (41% support; 37% oppose). Bringing back the talking filibuster has wide, bipartisan support, with 58% support from both Republicans and Democrats and 60% support from independents.
- Democrats and independents agree that passing voting rights legislation is more important than preserving the filibuster.
- 46 percent of voters say they would be more favorable toward Sen. Sinema if she voted in favor of filibuster reform, including 68 percent of Democrats and 46 percent of independents.
- Sen. Sinema goes from 23 percent re-elect among Democrats to 39 percent re-elect if she were to vote in favor of reforming the filibuster.
- 61 percent of Democrats view Sen. Sinema unfavorably, and only 23 percent say they would vote to reelect her. More than three in five Democrats disapprove of how she is handling "listening to constituents" (62 percent).
Eli Zupnick, spokesperson for Fix Our Senate, issued the following statement:
“This poll underscores what so many of us are hearing from Arizona voters: they want Sen. Sinema to stand with them to protect their voting rights and democracy, not an outdated and abused Senate rule.
“It shouldn’t be surprising that Arizona voters are frustrated with a senator who has, to this point, allowed Sen. McConnell and a minority of senators to veto critically-needed reforms. But this poll also shows that Sen. Sinema can earn back voters’ trust by taking common-sense steps to eliminate the filibuster as a weapon of political obstruction and fix the broken Senate.”
Additional highlights from the poll:
- There has been a 13-point increase in Sen. Sinema’s unfavorable ratings since July — 61% of Democrats now view her unfavorably. In July, only 34% of Democrats had an unfavorable opinion of her and 25% of independents had an unfavorable view. As importantly it is Republicans who are boosting Sinema recently (57% favorable; 31% unfavorable) which doesn’t translate to her re-election chances.
- Only 33% of all voters would re-elect Sinema while 50% would replace her. Only 38% of Republicans say they would vote to re-elect her, and 23% of Democrats.
- Democratic voters are especially concerned that Sinema is not looking out for them. More than three in five Democrats disapprove of how she is handling "listening to constituents" (62%), and a majority disapprove of how she has handled "protecting voting rights" (54%). Democrats are critical of Sinema, including saying she is not looking out for people like me (69%), is for the wealthy (68%), is not honest and trustworthy (65%), is a typical politician (64%), and is putting what is best for herself ahead of what is best for Arizona families (60%).
Methods
Lake Research Partners designed and administered this survey. It was conducted by telephone using professional interviewers as well as text-to-online from October 27 – 31, 2021. The survey reached a total of 550 likely 2022 voters in Arizona. Telephone numbers for the sample were generated from a list of registered voters in Arizona. The data were weighted slightly by gender, age, region, party registration, party identification, education, race on file, race ask, and 2020 presidential vote choice. The margin of error is +/-4.4%.
