Arizona and McCain (Gulp!)

Speaking of Arizona, Daily Kos is up with a new R2K poll of the state, and the results are pretty stunning:

John McCain 48
Barack Obama 47

Whoa. Among early voters:

John McCain 42
Barack Obama 54

Double whoa. McCain's favorable split is a good, but not-great 58/41 (+17). However, the data's most interesting slice of data may be with regards to independents. Indies have a 48/51 (-3) favorable split for their homestate Senator.

If these numbers are accurate, McCain, the self-styled maverick politician has a negative personal rating with independent voters in his own state. In the general election match-up, McCain is losing indies to Obama by a whooping 51-38. What is keeping McCain above water seems to be that he is winning 14 percent of Arizona Democrats.

In what may be the most damning finding in this poll, Kos polled a prospective 2010 Senate match-up between McCain and two-term Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano (with the question worded to people "[i]f the 2010 election for U.S. Senate were held today"). This one is ugly, and really just pouring salt in poor McCain's wounds:

John McCain 45
Janet Napolitano 53

This comes on the eve of John McCain appearing on the presidential election ballot. October 31, just five days out! Incidentally, Napolitano sports a 69/21 favorable split.

Granted, in one sense, this poll does not mean a huge amount with that prospective race two years out. But it really does. First, Napolitano is term-limited, and there has been no doubt that she would be the strongest Democratic nominee for Senate in 2010, so this is telling data. Second, that McCain would lose his own seat if his re-election were held today is a pathetic showing. For what it is worth, I think that if he loses Tuesday, McCain will retire in 2010, but you can't sugar-coat this result and whats for both November 4, 2008, and for 2010. I am sure Kos enjoyed putting this one out.

And for those who may question a Kos poll, many of his polls with R2K recently have not been great for Democrats, and besides, we have already gone over why these polls are as good as any (R2K is not going to damage their prized credibility by ginning up pre-ordained results for money).

Totally on-target or not, John McCain is in deep dung.