Former President Donald J. Trump appears to be benefiting from ticket-splitters in Arizona, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll released on Monday, a finding that highlights his strength with Latino and younger voters as well as the unique weaknesses of the Republican nominee for Senate.
The poll found Representative Ruben Gallego, the Democratic candidate for Senate, leading Kari Lake, a close ally of Mr. Trump’s, by six percentage points, even as Mr. Trump has opened up a five-point lead in the state over Vice President Kamala Harris.
Such a scenario would represent a notable degree of ticket-splitting, perpetuating a trend captured by surveys throughout this election cycle. Democratic Senate candidates in a number of swing states, including Arizona and Nevada, have consistently polled ahead of the top of the ticket, especially when President Biden was the party’s standard-bearer. As Ms. Harris’s nomination has made the election more competitive, the gap between her and those down-ballot Democrats has narrowed — but the trend persists in most races in swing states.
“Donald Trump creates his own weather, and he has a coalition supporting him like no other Republican nominee in our lifetime — perhaps ever — in Arizona,” said Stan Barnes, a former Republican state lawmaker who is now a political consultant there. He pointed to the support Mr. Trump has garnered from young people and voters of color, who traditionally lean Democratic, in surveys this year. “He’s breaking out of that rule, and it does not translate down-ballot,” he said.
In 2022, Ms. Lake angered many traditionally Republican voters during her divisive governor’s race, feuding with the governor at the time, Doug Ducey, a conservative Republican, and angering supporters of Senator John McCain, who died in 2018, by saying her political rise “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine.” She further alienated some Republicans by filing a series of lawsuits after she lost her election, claiming that it had been stolen.
This year, she has tried to change tactics, courting the moderate wing of the Republican Party in Arizona. But old grievances die hard.
“The McCain constituency in Arizona has not forgiven her for how she treated John McCain,” Mr. Barnes said. “That seems to be holding as a phenomenon despite it being two years later.”
Political observers on both sides of the U.S. Senate race still expect a close race, and Ms. Lake’s campaign has suggested that a strong showing by Mr. Trump in Arizona could help all down-ballot Republicans there.
“President Trump’s consistently strong lead in Arizona proves that Arizonans are tired and dissatisfied with the policies of Kamala Harris and Ruben Gallego,” Alex Nicoll, a spokesman for Ms. Lake, said in a statement.
Mr. Trump, of course, has also alienated many traditional Republicans in Arizona — including Mr. McCain himself during the 2016 election. But he has shown strength with young and Latino voters who have long been reliable Democratic voters.
“Arizona voters are eager for a return to President Trump’s prosperous and successful policies that secured our state, and so it comes as no surprise that President Trump is beating Kamala Harris in the polls,” Halee Dobbins, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, said in a statement.
If Arizonans are focused more on policy than character, that could present a challenge for Ms. Harris. The issues that Arizona voters say matter most to them are also the ones they most trust Mr. Trump to handle, according to the new New York Times/Siena College poll.
Those who said they were backing both Mr. Trump and Mr. Gallego were much more likely to be Latino, lower-income and less college-educated — people who have indicated more broadly an openness to Mr. Trump.
In the poll, 21 percent of Arizona respondents ranked immigration — a signature issue for Mr. Trump — as the most important factor in their vote, trailing only the economy. That was higher than in Georgia, where 14 percent of respondents prioritized immigration, after both the economy and abortion, and in North Carolina, where abortion and immigration were tied at 13 percent, behind the economy.
And by a 13-point margin, Arizona voters said they thought Mr. Trump would do a better job of handling immigration than Ms. Harris, suggesting that her efforts to chip away at his perceived advantage on the issue had not amounted to much.
Andy Barr, a Democratic campaign consultant, suggested that while some voters might be backing Mr. Trump because they prioritize policies, the Senate race felt more like a clash of personalities, so they were perhaps less willing to overlook perceived character flaws closer to home.
“I think the U.S. Senate stuff is a lot more personal,” Mr. Barr said.
Mr. Gallego, meanwhile, has been courting voters similar to ones Mr. Trump has sought to attract, particularly Latino and younger voters, helped in part by his Latino heritage and his status as a military veteran.
A prominent example of split support comes from the Arizona Police Association, whose president appeared onstage at a rally with Mr. Trump in August to enthusiastically endorse him. Days later, the group also backed Mr. Gallego. (The next day, Mr. Gallego released a letter criticizing a Justice Department investigation into the Phoenix Police Department, prompting a backlash from some Arizona progressives — a reminder of the challenges for Mr. Gallego in tacking toward the political middle.)
Ms. Harris and Mr. Gallego have significant advertising advantages over their opponents, but Mr. Gallego’s is more pronounced. His campaign and its allied groups have spent or booked about $56 million in television advertising between July and Election Day, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, compared with about $19 million booked or spent by Ms. Lake and her allies. That’s a bigger gap than the $15 million television advertising advantage Ms. Harris has over Mr. Trump in Arizona — about $56 million to about $41 million.
Jacques Petit, a spokesman for Ms. Harris’s campaign, said in a statement that the vice president’s campaign had the superior infrastructure on the ground as well. Still, he said, she “is the underdog in this election, and we know it will come down to razor-thin margins.”
Republicans have argued that the ticket-splitting seen in polls throughout the spring and the summer is unrealistic, based on increasing partisanship and recent past elections, a thesis Mr. Barr, the consultant, agreed with. “Trump’s not going to win by five — Harris is not going to win by five, either,” he said.
Mario E Diaz, a Democratic political strategist in Phoenix, suggested that polls were understating Ms. Harris’s strength in Arizona, in part because she was attracting groups that he argued were less likely to be counted in surveys, such as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“This is a state that will fight back, and I don’t think polls are being reflective of that sense of urgency right now,” Mr. Diaz said. “You can feel the enthusiasm, the concern, from people that traditionally would vote Republican for example and are saying, ‘Hell no.’”
The post Trump Gets a Lift From Arizona Ticket-Splitters Backing a Democrat for Senate appeared first on New York Times.