Pollsters: Arizona congressional races are far from over

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(The Center Square) – With just over a week to go until the midterm elections, it’s anybody’s game in Arizona's 1st and 6th congressional districts.

That’s the takeaway from political pollsters from the Cook Political Report and Noble Predictive Insights, who report neck-and-neck races down the home stretch. And an analyst says independent voters' disapproval of Republican President Donald Trump could ultimately decide the winners. 

In CPR’s latest batch of House race ratings on Friday, most of the congressional races were not considered a toss-up. The Arizona’s races were in CPR’s three-tiered classification system that ranges from leaning toward a political party to solidly going toward it. 

Lots of fight left

CPR’s U.S. House analyst Erin Covey was not available for an interview. But longtime pollster Mike Noble, the founder and CEO of Noble Predictive Insights, talked to The Center Square about NPI's latest polling, which agreed with CPR.

NPI polls show Democrats in Arizona with an advantage over their Republican opponents, 49% to 44%.

But Noble stressed that there’s much to be decided in the 48th state, most notably in Arizona’s 1st and 6th districts.

The 1st District is one that was vacated by U.S. Rep. David Schweikert of Fountain Hills, who lost to U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs to be the Republican nominee for governor. Schweikert's decision to run for another office left the door for former NFL kicker Jay Feely to run on Nov. 3 as the Republican candidate in Biggs' district.

On the other side, the man who lost to Schweikert by 1.82% two years ago, Amish Shah, is back as the Democrats’ candidate this cycle. Noble’s latest polls show the former Arizona state representative holding a one-point lead, which makes the race a statistical tie because of the margin of error.

In Southern Arizona, 6th Congressional District race between incumbent Republican Juan Ciscomani and Democratic challenger JoAnna Mendoza remains close, but is moving leftward to “Lean Democratic," according to CPR. 

Ciscomani’s 2.51% edge from two years ago appears to have evaporated, Noble said, with Mendoza holding a two-point edge at the moment - another statistical tie.

The races in the 1st and 6th districts remain competitive, Noble told The Center Square.

In CPR’s most recent release, only 17 (or 3.9%) of the 435 House races were listed in the “toss-up” category, compared with 33 (or 7.6%) that were in the “lean” category either way and 31 (7.1%) in the “likely” camp.

Courting the independent vote

Thom Reilly, professor and co-director of the Center for an Independent and Sustainable Democracy at Arizona State University, told The Center Square that the Arizona midterms will come down to the state's largest voting bloc: independents.

This year 1,527,483 (or 34.92%) of all registered voters in Arizona chose to go independent, which helps explains the swing toward Democratic candidates, particularly in the state’s two tightest races, Reilly said.

“The big story in Arizona with independent voters is that they are no longer supporting President Trump,” Reilly told The Center Square."They are decisively moving towards Democrats, and that I believe is why Cook Political Report and others are making these swing districts ‘Lean Democrat’.”

State of play

As The Center Square previously reported, control of the House could hang on whether the Democrats are able to flip Arizona’s Republican seats in the 1st and 6th congressional districts.

For now, both districts remain in CPR’s “Lean Democratic” camp, joining 14 others across the country in that classification, while Arizona's 2nd Congressional District, which pits incumbent Republican Rep. Eli Crane against former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, the race's Democrat, is the lone race in the state in CPR’s “Lean Republican” camp.

None of the nine Arizona Congressional races are on CPR’s “Likely Democratic” list, which is more definitive than the "Lean Democratic" list. Other races are either “Solid Democratic” (Arizon's 3rd, 4th and 7th congressional districts) or “Solid Republican” (5th, 8th and 9th districts) in 2026.

Two years ago, the average margin of victory in the nine races was just over 17%. But the 1st and 6th districts have remained areas with close races. They saw margins of 1.82% and 2.51% in favor of Schweikert and Ciscomani, respectively.

Fast forward two years and the lack of toss-up races in this year’s election cycle shouldn’t be read into too much overall, Noble told The Center Square.

Instead, the longtime pollster said he believes such trends speak more to how the districts are drawn up and how any movement left or right is more about a shift in attitudes toward what’s happening in the nation’s capital than anything.

“What's interesting this cycle is that the political environment has shifted enough toward Democrats that even some traditionally competitive Republican-held seats are now being rated as leaning Democratic,” Noble told The Center Square. “But make no mistake, AZ-01 and AZ-06 are still very close races, and neither party should be taking those seats for granted."

The drastic swings in Arizona’s most competitive congressional races are the net result of the wild card that is the independent voting bloc, Reilly said. He noted independent voters can swing back and forth between parties depending on what’s happening at the time.

“I tell parties you can't count on the independent vote. Just because they vote for [a candidate] in one election doesn't mean they turn Republican or Democrat,” Reilly said. “Here’s the difference between [independents] and Republicans or Democrats. Republicans are going to vote Republicans at the end of the day. They might have to hold their nose and might be upset. Democrats are going to vote Democrat.

“Independents will be swayed by the candidate or by the issues at the time, and I think that's what we're seeing in these wide swings," Reilly said.