Jan Brewer Jumps Ahead In Polls, Except With Latinos

By Julianne Hing Jul 15, 2010

New numbers released today by Rocky Mountain Poll show that Arizona Gov Jan Brewer’s anti-immigrant tactics are paying off for her across the state. In a poll the company conducted of 524 voters in the week before July 11, Brewer’s got a 20-point lead in front of Attorney General Terry Goddard, the Democratic frontrunner. But look at the numbers broken down by race and Goddard has a strong lead against Brewer among Latino respondents–58 to 16 percent. In fact, Goddard keeps his lead by a margin of two to one among other non-Latino people of color, too. And the numbers don’t look so great among voters who are asked about Brewer’s job performance. Of the general electorate, only 40 percent rate her performance as good, the rest call her performance fair or poor. Back in April though, things were much closer. Goddard, who’s long been the Democrats’ frontrunner, [had a three percent lead](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/27/terry-goddard-pulls-ahead_n_553823.html)–47 to 44–over Brewer then. The numbers now are very different, Brewer’s got 45 percent of the votes of those who were polled, and Goddard’s got just 25 percent. Of course, as [Channing Kennedy has discussed](https://colorlines.com/archives/2010/05/5_reasons_to_ignore_pews_poll_on_arizona_sb1070.html), it’s important to approach any conversation about polling numbers, especially where SB 1070 is concerned, with some caution. But the numbers are particularly instructive for immigrant rights groups in Arizona who are pushing voter mobilization efforts as one of their strategies to fight the law, [with the hope of turning outraged Arizona residents into registered voters](http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/06/nation/la-na-arizona-voters-20100706) come November. According to Francisco Heredia, the Arizona director of Mi Familia Vota, who spoke to Phoenix news station KPHO, [only half of Arizona’s eligible Latino voters](http://www.kpho.com/news/24151743/detail.html) are registered. Latino voters make up just [17 percent of the current electorate](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126219400), but 30 percent of Arizona’s population.