POLL: AZ SEN: Which Mark wins? Kelly or Brnovich

[MT Treasurer]

Depends on the overall environment, turnout patterns, Biden approval numbers, and extent of DEM/GOP-friendly trends canceling each other out (sane), but I don’t buy this meme that Kelly is some godlike juggernaut who would be immensely difficult to dislodge even in a neutral year. I maintain that this is the most vulnerable Senate seat for Democrats, with or without Brnovich. Tilt R.

[MT Treasurer]

Depends on the overall environment, turnout patterns, Biden approval numbers, and extent of DEM/GOP-friendly trends canceling each other out (sane), but I don’t buy this meme that Kelly is some godlike juggernaut who would be immensely difficult to dislodge even in a neutral year. I maintain that this is the most vulnerable Senate seat for Democrats, with or without Brnovich. Tilt R.

Presently, NH with Sununu is more vulnerable. The 16 point polling difference between the two is just so much that it can't be MOE. It's not that Kelly is a godlike juggernaut, rather he's just a good candidate (veteran, astronaut, moderate reputation) and an incumbent. The bigger part is that the AZ R primary electorate is far right for a swing state, which means that the best candidate to win might not get through a primary.

First of all, this "16-point difference" is based solely on two surveys. Second, even if we consider it representative of the current state of those races in general (we shouldn’t, especially given how unreliable the industry in general has become, but I’ll entertain the idea), mere partisanship/PVI will erase most of this difference after the campaign moves into full swing. Was Evan Bayh far more likely to win his race than Maggie Hassan because of the "20- to 30-point difference" in his favor in the polling of IN-SEN and NH-SEN in July 2016? Obviously not, even though you had several people arguing exactly that (and promoting the nonsensical notion that Ayotte could win but that Democrats would still flip the Senate or whatever).

As for your other arguments, again, the R primary electorate is decidedly conservative in pretty much every swing state (don’t see you applying the same argument to your NC-SEN analysis), Hassan is an incumbent as well, Nelson was an astronaut and still lost in a D wave year (can’t believe I’m actually typing this), and there’s no shortage of veterans who have been defeated in Congressional races.

Democrats are in for a world of hurt nationally if they’re losing a federal race in a D-trending Biden +7 state that just reelected its D Senator by 17 points, regardless of the Republican's "candidate quality."

[MT Treasurer]

I don't see why people are treating Brnovich as Atlas meme Ron Desantis.
Dude is nothing special, pretty much just generic r

The only "Atlas meme" with regard to this race is that Republicans need to resurrect Ronald Reagan to beat Mark Kelly and that a generic R wouldn’t be capable of doing the job in a neutral/R-leaning environment. The consensus here is eerily reminiscent of the NV-SEN 2018 analysis (but with the parties reversed), when this forum was missing the forest for the trees by getting carried away by the candidate qualities of the various Democrats & Jacky Rosen's campaign decisions while not realizing that Heller was for all intents and purposes DOA against any Democrat not named Shelley Berkley (and even then...). Kelly might be in a better position than Heller, but that’s not saying much, and the votes are there for the GOP to flip the seat.

[MT Treasurer]

I don't see why people are treating Brnovich as Atlas meme Ron Desantis.
Dude is nothing special, pretty much just generic r

The only "Atlas meme" with regard to this race is that Republicans need to resurrect Ronald Reagan to beat Mark Kelly and that a generic R wouldn’t be capable of doing the job in a neutral/R-leaning environment. The consensus here is eerily reminiscent of the NV-SEN 2018 analysis (but with the parties reversed), when this forum was missing the forest for the trees by getting carried away by the candidate qualities of the various Democrats & Jacky Rosen's campaign decisions while not realizing that Heller was for all intents and purposes DOA against any Democrat not named Shelley Berkley (and even then...). Kelly might be in a better position than Heller, but that’s not saying much, and the votes are there for the GOP to flip the seat.

I think you're kind of strawmanning here. No one is saying that Kelly is unbeatable or that he's overwhelmingly favored. I think a lot of people on here have the race as Tilt or Lean D. Tilt or Lean does not mean he's safe. He's clearly not. But since we don't know who the Republican nominee will be or what the environment will be like in November 2022, it's fair to give him the benefit of the doubt and call him a very slight favorite for now.

I’m not at all strawmanning, it’s pretty evident that many here consider Kelly overwhelmingly favored and believe that it would take an unusually strong Republican nominee to beat him (as opposed to just a generic R). I just wonder why people are so quick to give Kelly the benefit of the doubt but not Hassan — yes, Sununu will likely run in NH, but if you note the uncertainty in the national environment to justify rating AZ Lean D, it seems bizarre to then be this pessimistic about Hassan's electoral prospects (the combination of a decent environment for Democrats & federal partisanship would be enough to offset most/enough of Sununu's advantages in the realm of candidate quality in a Biden +7 state, so why not give her the benefit of the doubt as well?).

Unless AZ has truly gone the way of GA or NH undergoes a dramatic R trend between now and 2022, such a divergence is really hard to explain. I’m not ruling anything out, it just strikes me as a highly improbable (even if not impossible) scenario. I can see a case for rating NH Tilt R and AZ Tilt D (even then, I’m skeptical about Democrats holding AZ on a night when they’re losing NH), but rating NH Lean (or Likely) R and AZ Lean (or Likely) D is a far-fetched assessment.