Two days before the first presidential debate last week, President Bush had an 11-point lead over Democratic candidate John Kerry in Arizona, according to the latest KAET-ASU poll.
Forty-nine percent of the 553 registered Arizona voters polled said they would probably vote for Bush on Nov. 2, while 38 percent said they would vote for Kerry.
KAET-ASU poll director Bruce Merrill said the results of the Arizona poll, released Sept. 28, wouldn't have had a "noticeable change" if the poll were conducted after the first presidential debate, which was held at the University of Miami in Florida on Sept. 30.
"When you're supporting a certain candidate, [voters] go in watching the debate with the perception that their candidate of choice wins the debate," Merrill said.
But national polls conducted immediately after the debate showed that Kerry had a slight lead over Bush. A Newsweek poll showed 47 percent of registered voters nationwide said they would vote for Kerry, while 45 percent said they would vote for Bush.
A national poll conducted before the debate by The Washington Post and ABC News in early September showed the opposite; more than 50 percent of 1,202 registered voters said they would vote for Bush while 44 percent said they would vote for Kerry.
Jared Sandella, president of the ASU College Republicans, said the Sept. 28 Arizona poll results show how hard the Republican Party has been campaigning in the past months.
"It clearly shows that the Republican Party is more organized in its campaign efforts, and it also shows where the state is leaning toward," Sandella said.
But Cole Hickman, president of the Young Democrats at ASU, said the poll results are outdated because it doesn't match what national polls have shown after the first presidential debate, which clearly had Kerry leading over Bush.
Hickman said the results would have shown Kerry leading had the poll been conducted after the first debate.
"The momentum we [Democrats] have felt in Arizona already proves that the poll results are incorrect," Hickman said.
The KAET-ASU poll suggests that Bush's support comes from Democrats crossing over to vote for Bush, Merrill said.
Fourteen percent of Democrats polled said they might change their minds and vote for Bush while 7 percent of Republicans said they would choose Kerry.
Fifty-one percent of voters said they approved of Bush's overall job performance.
But in both the latest poll and the August poll conducted by KAET-ASU, there were two areas -- the war on Iraq and the economy -- where more voters have consistently said they didn't approve of Bush's job performance.
In the latest poll, 50 percent said they disapproved of Bush's handling of the war in Iraq, while 47 percent said they approved of the president's performance.
One percent of voters said they would vote for Libertarian candidate Michael Badnarik and 12 percent were undecided.
The poll, which was conducted from Sept. 23 to Sept. 26, had a sampling error of 4.1 percent.
Reach the reporter at laosamoa.poasa@asu.edu.
