Poll: Dem leads race to fill Flake’s Senate seat

Democratic candidate Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) is leading the race to fill retiring Sen. Jeff Flake’s (R-Ariz) Senate seat, according to a new poll.

Sinema is leading all three GOP candidates in potential general election match-ups for the seat, according to an ABC15/OHIP poll released Wednesday.

Sinema holds a 6 point lead over Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) and a 10 point lead over candidate Kelli Ward.

She also holds a sizable lead over former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, with 59 percent of respondents favoring Sinema over Arpaio in a potential match-up. Just 33 percent of respondents backed Arpaio in the scenario.

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The numbers point to the possibility of Democrats flipping Flake’s seat in a historically red state during the 2018 midterms.

“The issue we are consistently seeing in the numbers is that Democrats are unified, Republicans are less united, and the all-important independent voters are trending anti-Republican/Trump,” OHPI chief pollster Mike Noble said.

The poll also found that Arpaio was losing favorability in Arizona.

A January poll found that the former sheriff was nearly tied with McSally, but this poll found that 36 percent of respondents backed Ward in the GOP primary. Twenty-two percent supported Arpaio, and 27 percent said they would vote for McSally.

ABC15/OHPI conducted phone interviews with 600 likely voters for their general election poll April 10-11, and that poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

Phone interviews with 302 likely Republican voters were conducted for the GOP primary poll, which has a margin of error of 5.64 percentage points.