Arpaio gets high marks from voters

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is strongly supported by Arizonans although he is frequently under fire from federal officials and others over his policies on illegal immigration, according to a Cronkite/Eight poll.

The latest poll is the first one in about a year to ask for the public's opinion of Arpaio.

"Sixty-four percent, two of every three, registered voters in Arizona, give him a positive job performance rating," said Arizona State University pollster Bruce Merrill.

About the same margin disagreed with the federal government's decision to strip Arpaio of some of his authority to arrest illegal immigrants.

Merrill was not surprised at Arpaio's support.

"We could almost construct a question and no matter how terrible the question was -- like, `We're going to take illegal immigrants and we're going to put 'em in dungeons and we're going to hang 'em on the wall by their handcuffs and we're going to beat 'em. Would you support that or oppose that?' -- and two-thirds of the people in Arizona would support it," Merrill said.

Voters also gave high marks to Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, a political ally of Arpaio. Thomas' performance got a 44 percent approval rating. Twenty-three percent disapproved and 33 percent said they had no opinion.

Gov. Jan Brewer is something of a mystery, according to the poll.

"She continues to not be very well known statewide, in that she gets, at best, average job performance ratings," said Merrill.

He added, "A fifth of the registered voters in Arizona, statewide, say they do not know her well enough to give her a rating. That's very high, frankly, for a governor who's been in office going on for a year."

Among voters who did judge Brewer's performance, the results were equally divided -- 39 percent approved, 39 percent disapproved.

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard received positive job performance ratings from 55 percent of Arizona's voters while17 percent did not approve and 28 percent could not evaluate him. Seventy-six percent of those with an opinion gave the attorney general a high job performance rating.

The poll showed most Arizona voters are unfamiliar with Secretary of State Ken Bennett and State Treasurer Dean Martin.

On another topic, Arizona voters want the U.S. Congress to vote on a health care reform bill this year. Sixty-seven percent said it was important for a vote to be held, 30 percent said it was not important and three percent were undecided. When asked if a public option should be included in a health reform bill, 44 percent said they want the bill to have a public option, 49 percent were opposed and 7 percent said they didn't have an opinion.

The poll was conducted by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University and Eight/KAET. The statewide sample of 652 registered voters was 37 percent Republican, 34 percent Democrat and 29 percent Independent. Fifty-nine percent of the interviews were conducted in Maricopa County, 17 percent in Pima County and 24 percent in Arizona's other counties. Forty-nine percent of the voters interviewed were men and 51 percent are women. The sampling error for the statewide sample survey is plus or minus 3.8 percent. The sampling error for the Maricopa County sample, which included 389 registered voters, is plus or minus 5.0 percent.

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