Midterm Election Poll: Arizona Senate, McSally vs. Sinema (original) (raw)
Our poll shows a close race.
But remember: It’s just one poll, and we talked to only 606 people. Each candidate’s total could easily be four points different if we polled everyone in the state. And having a small sample is only one possible source of error.
Where we called:
Each dot shows one of the 39289 calls we made.
Vote choice: Dem. Rep. Don’t know Didn’t answer
To preserve privacy, exact addresses have been concealed. The locations shown here are approximate.
Explore the 2016 election in detail with this interactive map.
About the race
- Kyrsten Sinema has represented the Ninth District since 2013. 41% favorable rating; 45% unfavorable; 14% don’t know
Based on 606 interviews - Martha McSally has represented the Second District since 2015. 43% favorable rating; 45% unfavorable; 12% don’t know
Based on 606 interviews - Whoever wins this election will make history as the first female senator from Arizona.
- Ms. McSally, an Air Force veteran, defeated primary challengers from the far right by linking herself to the president. Now her challenge is to appeal to the broader electorate of her state, home to fervent Trump enthusiasts, more centrist suburban voters, and a growing minority population repelled by the president’s words and policies.
- Ms. Sinema is emphasizing her centrism and her biography, including her struggles with poverty. But her past anti-war activism and ties to far-left groups have come under scrutiny, along with her claims that she was homeless as a child.
- Arizona has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. On the other hand, this state is fond of electing mavericks like Barry Goldwater, John McCain and Jeff Flake.
Other organizations’ ratings:
Previous election results:
| 2016 President | +4 Trump |
|---|---|
| 2012 President | +9 Romney |
How our poll result changed
As we reach more people, our poll will become more stable and the margin of sampling error will shrink. The changes in the timeline below reflect that sampling error, not real changes in the race.
One reason we’re doing these surveys live is so you can see the uncertainty for yourself.
If sampling error were the only type of error in a poll, we would expect candidates who trail by two points in a poll of 606 people to win about one out of every three races. But this probably understates the total error by a factor of two.
Our turnout model
There’s a big question on top of the standard margin of error in a poll: Who is going to vote? It’s a particularly challenging question this year, since special elections have shown Democrats voting in large numbers.
To estimate the likely electorate, we combine what people say about how likely they are to vote with information about how often they have voted in the past. In previous races, this approach has been more accurate than simply taking people at their word. But there are many other ways to do it.
Assumptions about who is going to vote may be particularly important in this race.
Our poll under different turnout scenarios
| Who will vote? | Est. turnout | Our poll result |
|---|---|---|
| The types of people who voted in 2014 | 1.5m | McSally +6 |
| People whose voting history suggests they will vote, regardless of what they say | 2m | McSally +3 |
| Our estimate | 2m | McSally +2 |
| People who say they are almost certain to vote, and no one else | 2.1m | Sinema +7 |
| People who say they will vote, adjusted for past levels of truthfulness | 2.1m | McSally +3 |
| The types of people who voted in 2016 | 2.3m | McSally +5 |
| Every active registered voter | 3.4m | McSally +2 |
All estimates based on 606 interviews
The types of people we reached
Even if we got turnout exactly right, the margin of error wouldn’t capture all of the error in a poll. The simplest version assumes we have a perfect random sample of the voting population. We do not.
People who respond to surveys are almost always too old, too white, too educated and too politically engaged to accurately represent everyone.
How successful we were in reaching different kinds of voters
| Called | Inter-viewed | Successrate | Ourresponses | Goal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 to 29 | 4253 | 35 | 1 in 122 | 6% | 8% |
| 30 to 64 | 20423 | 297 | 1 in 69 | 49% | 53% |
| 65 and older | 10240 | 273 | 1 in 38 | 45% | 39% |
| Male | 15851 | 273 | 1 in 58 | 45% | 47% |
| Female | 19263 | 333 | 1 in 58 | 55% | 53% |
| White | 24273 | 458 | 1 in 53 | 76% | 71% |
| Nonwhite | 7336 | 89 | 1 in 82 | 15% | 19% |
| Cell | 22292 | 362 | 1 in 62 | 60% | — |
| Landline | 12822 | 244 | 1 in 53 | 40% | — |
Based on administrative records. Some characteristics are missing or incorrect. Many voters are called multiple times.
Pollsters compensate by giving more weight to respondents from under-represented groups.
Here, we’re weighting by age, party registration, gender, likelihood of voting, race, education and region, mainly using data from voting records files compiled by L2, a nonpartisan voter file vendor.
But weighting works only if you weight by the right categories and you know what the composition of the electorate will be. In 2016, many pollsters didn’t weight by education and overestimated Hillary Clinton’s standing as a result.
Here are other common ways to weight a poll:
Our poll under different weighting schemes
| Our poll result | |
|---|---|
| Don’t weight by party registration, like most public polls | Even |
| Don’t weight by education, like many polls in 2016 | McSally +1 |
| Weight using census data instead of voting records, like most public polls | McSally +1 |
| Our estimate | McSally +2 |
All estimates based on 606 interviews
Just because one candidate leads in all of these different weighting scenarios doesn’t mean much by itself. They don’t represent the full range of possible weighting scenarios, let alone the full range of possible election results.
Undecided voters
About 6 percent of voters said that they were undecided or refused to tell us whom they would vote for. On questions about issues, these voters most closely resembled Democrats.
Issues and other questions
Do you approve or disapprove of the job Donald Trump is doing as president?
| Approve | Disapp. | Don’t know | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voters n = 606 | 48% | 46% | 5% |
Who would you like to see control the U.S. Senate?
| Dem. | Rep. | Don't know | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voters n = 606 | 42% | 51% | 7% |
Percentages are weighted to resemble likely voters.
What different types of voters said
Voters nationwide are deeply divided along demographic lines. Our poll suggests divisions too. But don’t overinterpret these tables. Results among subgroups may not be representative or reliable. Be especially careful with groups with fewer than 100 respondents, shown here in stripes.
Gender
| Dem. | Rep. | Und. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Female n = 331 / 53% of voters | 53% | 40% | 6% |
| Male 272 / 47% | 37% | 56% | 6% |
Age
| Dem. | Rep. | Und. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18 to 29 n = 34 / 7% of voters | 51% | 38% | 11% |
| 30 to 44 87 / 15% | 54% | 38% | 7% |
| 45 to 64 213 / 38% | 44% | 49% | 6% |
| 65 and older 269 / 39% | 43% | 52% | 5% |
Race
| Dem. | Rep. | Und. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| White n = 442 / 70% of voters | 41% | 52% | 6% |
| Black 21 / 3% | 81% | 9% | 9% |
| Hispanic 76 / 16% | 56% | 40% | 5% |
| Asian 7 / 1% | 89% | 11% | — |
| Other 34 / 6% | 47% | 47% | 6% |
Race and education
| Dem. | Rep. | Und. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nonwhite n = 138 / 26% of voters | 59% | 36% | 5% |
| White, college grad 201 / 30% | 54% | 40% | 6% |
| White, not college grad 241 / 40% | 32% | 61% | 6% |
Education
| Dem. | Rep. | Und. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| H.S. Grad. or Less n = 84 / 20% of voters | 41% | 52% | 5% |
| Some College Educ. 240 / 37% | 37% | 57% | 6% |
| 4-year College Grad. 141 / 25% | 51% | 42% | 6% |
| Post-grad. 127 / 17% | 66% | 30% | 4% |
Party
| Dem. | Rep. | Und. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Democrat n = 178 / 30% of voters | 93% | 3% | 3% |
| Republican 215 / 35% | 9% | 86% | 4% |
| Independent 178 / 30% | 45% | 45% | 9% |
| Another party 18 / 3% | 24% | 68% | 8% |
Party registration
| Dem. | Rep. | Und. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic n = 195 / 33% of voters | 81% | 13% | 5% |
| Republican 239 / 39% | 13% | 81% | 5% |
| Other 169 / 28% | 51% | 42% | 7% |
Intention of voting
| Dem. | Rep. | Und. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Already voted n = 176 / 30% of voters | 51% | 45% | 2% |
| Almost certain 268 / 44% | 44% | 48% | 7% |
| Very likely 123 / 21% | 46% | 49% | 6% |
| Somewhat likely 14 / 2% | 26% | 63% | 10% |
| Not very likely 3 / 0% | 37% | 36% | 26% |
| Not at all likely 14 / 1% | 21% | 40% | 40% |
Percentages are weighted to resemble likely voters; the number of respondents in each subgroup is unweighted. Undecided voters includes those who refused to answer.
Other districts where we’ve completed polls
About this poll
- Most responses shown here are delayed about 30 minutes. Some are delayed longer for technical reasons.
- About 1 percent of the voters in our poll said that they would vote for a third-party candidate. They are not shown here.
- The design effect of this poll is 1.11. That’s a measure of how much weighting we are doing to make our respondents resemble all voters.
- Read more about the methodology for this poll.
- Download the microdata behind this poll.
This survey was conducted by The New York Times Upshot and Siena College.
Data collection by Reconnaissance Market Research, M. Davis and Company, the Institute for Policy and Opinion Research at Roanoke College, the Survey Research Center at the University of Waterloo, the University of North Florida and the Siena College Research Institute.
By Michael Andre, Larry Buchanan, Matthew Bloch, Jeremy Bowers, Nate Cohn, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Richard Harris, Josh Katz, Rebecca Lieberman, Blacki Migliozzi, Paul Murray, Adam Pearce, Kevin Quealy, Eden Weingart and Isaac White