How will Arizonans vote?

TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — We are about to see who voters chose after months of campaigning and millions of dollars. But there have been plenty of polls working to figure out which way the country’s headed and who will lead the way.

“What we know in Arizona is that our elections are incredibly close. They are incredibly close. We have an electorate here that is almost evenly divided across Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. Republicans, of course, have an edge, and we have elections that are won by razor thin margins.”

University of Arizona Political Scientist Samara Klar says that split means independents who make up about 33 percent of registered voters swing a lot of weight in our state—and it’s important to understand which way they are leaning.

She says, “About 75 to 90% of independents will tell you which party they prefer if you ask them.

But that doesn’t mean they are, you know, dyed in the wool partisans. They are less attached to the party. They’re less likely to campaign. They’re less likely to put up yard signs. They’re less likely to tell their colleagues who to vote for. That’s really important. And what we see in Arizona is that evidently independents have been leaning toward the Democratic Party. I think it’s the only way to explain the fact that Arizona has a Democratic governor, 2 Democratic senators, a Democratic attorney general, a Democratic secretary of state.

Klar says this year voters of all parties seem to have focused on the cost of living as an issue that affects them much more personally than a lot of other political issues.

Polls catch a lot of attention in the runup to election day. Klar says they can be quite accurate but they may have to find ways to reflect the views of people who may not want to talk to pollsters.

“Those tend to be younger people who are not as interested in talking to survey researchers. Conservatives and Republicans often are not as willing to speak to survey researchers. We do tend to find that our survey samples before we weight the data are older, more women, they’re whiter, they’re more liberal, they’re more educated, and that’s why pollsters have, you know, these statistical tools that they can use in order to make sure they’re getting every viewpoint in those samples.”

And she says now it’s really time to wait for the poll that really counts—the actual vote.