Senator mum about bid for re-election in 2012
A new poll suggests that Sen. Jon Kyl is well-positioned to seek a fourth U.S. Senate term next year if he chooses to run again.
The big question in political circles is whether he will.
Kyl, 68, is expected to announce soon whether he will seek re-election or retire. As GOP whip, Kyl is the No. 2 Senate Republican and the highest-ranking Arizonan on Capitol Hill since the late Rep. John Rhodes was House Republican leader in the 1970s. For the past two years, Kyl has been a mainstay on the national stage as one of the most prominent Republican critics of President Barack Obama's agenda.
"The old cliche is that it's really hard to give up that kind of power once you have it," said Bruce Merrill, a veteran political scientist and professor emeritus at Arizona State University. "But if there's somebody who I think could walk away from power because he would feel that it was the right time to do so, it would be Jon Kyl."
So far, Kyl has kept mum about his future plans, fueling speculation in Washington and at home. But some local political observers say he has taken steps consistent with a nascent re-election bid, including making a commitment to headline a Feb. 12 Republican Lincoln Day dinner in Kingman and participate in other grass-roots Lincoln Day activities around the state.
Kyl was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
But if he is inclined to mount another political campaign, he got some good news from a new statewide poll that indicates he is poised to defeat some prominent possible Democratic challengers, including former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano.
A marquee Kyl-vs.-Napolitano slugfest has long been a dream of Arizona political junkies, but the statewide automated telephone survey of 599 Arizona voters indicated that Kyl would handily win such a matchup today, 53 percent to 41 percent. An additional 6 percent was undecided. The poll was conducted Friday through Sunday by Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm based in Raleigh, N.C. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Particularly problematic for Napolitano, who resigned during her second term as governor in January 2009 to become Obama's Homeland Security secretary, is a steep unfavorable rating of 55 percent. Only 40 percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of her, while 5 percent were not sure.
"We've just found that ever since she left the state, she's had pretty bad numbers," said Tom Jensen, Public Policy Polling director. "I think part of that is just unhappiness with her for not finishing her term."
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NOTE: WE MENTIONED YESTERDAY IN THE ARTICLE "IS 'BIG SIS' JANET NAPOLITANO COMING BACK TO AZ TO RUN FOR THE US SENATE?" THAT NAPOLITANO IS CONSIDERING RUNNING.
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