Governor Jan Brewer will win the Republican primary but will lose to Democrat Terry Goddard in the general election.*
*Author’s opinion subject to change without notice.
In the run-up to the primary, Brewer is identified with three policy positions. Her proposed temporary sales tax increase (Prop 100), put her at odds with her Republican challengers and conservative base of the party. However, her subsequent moves – - adding Arizona to the list of states suing the federal government over ObamaCare and signing the state’s new illegal immigration bill – - have restored her credibility among conservatives and will likely secure her victory in the primary.
The winner of the Republican primary should be a shoo-in in the general election, right? The consensus is that the 2010 elections are the GOP’s to lose. A majority of Americans favor repeal of ObamaCare, oppose higher energy bills and don’t want their taxes raised when the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year. Plus, turnout for key Democratic voting blocs, such as African-Americans, Latinos and young people, is traditionally low for midterm elections. Victory should be assured for Republican candidates this November.
But Arizona’s illegal immigration law may be a game-changer. By signing the controversial bill, Governor Brewer has ignited the Democratic base in Arizona and across the country. At a minimum, the bill will motivate a significant number of Latino voters to rally against her at the polls in November.
Obama and the DNC are laying a strategy to ‘reconnect’ with the voters who put them in office in 2008, and opposition to Arizona’s new illegal immigration law has already energized the left and put the GOP on the defense. San Francisco officials have called for a boycott of Arizona and the mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota has banned publicly-funded travel to the state. Rallies are planned rallies in 70 different cities this Saturday, May 1st.
Governor Brewer’s endorsement of the illegal immigration bill will serve her well in August. In November, not so much.
Neil Rosekrans is a founder and partner of StateBrief.com. He has been a guest political commentator for the Arizona Law Channel, NBC's Sunday Square Off and The Terry Gilberg Show on KFYI. Neil earned his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and earned his MBA and Masters in Public Policy, with an emphasis in International Relations, from Pepperdine University.
Neil and his wife, Beth, live in Scottsdale, Arizona. 
Neil,
I’ll respectfully disagree with you. Conservatives aren’t that dumb and they have LONG memories. First, Jan’s hands were tied in signing the immigration bill. If she hadn’t, she might as well have dropped out of the primary. Her signing of the bill is insincere at best.
Second, despite her record, she has become a big government Republican a la Bush and the big spending Congress. The woman has backed a tax increase and that’s anathema to conservatives. They won’t forget it. This isn’t the only time she’s increased taxes. Her line item vetoes of the budget last year INCREASED spending and taxes. Also, her excuses for raising taxes are also ubiquitous liberal excuses: education and public safety. If she wanted to fund education and public safety, she would have cut fraud, waste and abuse elsewhere or slashed the budgets of special interests and ignored their outrage. Every time she gets on TV pushing the tax increase, and when conservatives go to the polls in May, they’ll be reminded of exactly who backed that tax increase: Brewer and her cronies who all stand to gain from confiscating more of the people’s hard earned dollars.
Third, Jan’s big government friends and endorsement of McCain is a reflection of her mindset. If she were truly a small-government conservative, she would not have asked RINOs Grant Woods and Mary Peters to be on her campaign Committee. If she were truly a small-government conservative, she would never have endorsed John McAmnesty.
Fourth, Jan has made other missteps as well. She’s flip-flopped on the Western States Initiative, first issuing an exec order saying we’d stay in it, then a month later saying we’d merely show up and not sign anything. If she were conservative, she’d be consistent and she’d pull Arizona out of that leftist morass. Global Warming has been shown to be a hoax and the WSI is nothing but an organization meant to destroy the economies of the participating states through adherence to the belief in global warming.
Fifth, Jan’s flunkies have been trying to shield her from debates because they KNOW she will perform abominably. Even when she gets in front of a crowd, she makes missteps. When other candidates hit her on the tax increase, she angrily responds, preaching at the audience and wagging her finger. This is not the reaction of someone who should be in the governor’s office, nor is defending a tax increase a Republican activity.
Sixth, Republicans want to win. Polls have shown pretty consistently that Jan will lose to Terry Goddard. Martin and Mills are the only ones to have shown that they can beat Goddard. Of the two, Mills may be damaged goods because recent court documents have shown that Mills defrauded a business partner of millions of dollars. I think Republicans really do want change. I don’t think they’re going to line up behind a wishy-washy governor who has no shot at winning in the general election. That would be counter to the change they seek. They want someone CONSISTENT and Jan is anything but. They also want someone who will WIN in November. Jan can’t.
Just like when Republicans were swept aside in `06 and `08 for a failure to adhere to Republican principles, Jan and McCain will be swept aside in August. I think conservatives are absolutely energized via J.D. ‘s campaign and via the tea parties. They’re going to turn out to the polls this year and they’re going to be throwing out establishment candidates. Brewer will have a BIG target on her forehead because she’s neither a JD supporter nor a tea party supporter. She’s toast already, Neil. She just doesn’t know she’s dead in the water yet.
Thank you for the thoughtful comments, Marcus. Perhaps a month or two ago, I would have thought that Brewer’s support of Prop 100 would be enough to sink her in the Republican primary. It was virtually a three-way tie between her, Mills and Martin until she moved to the right by opposing ObamaCare, withdrawing Arizona from the regional cap and trade and by signing SB 1070.
The latest Rasmussen polls now have her up by 8 points on Mills (pre lawsuit news) in the primary. Her support of Prop 100 is a huge sticking point with conservatives and I don’t expect many of them to forget that in August. But she is getting national exposure on 1070, which might just push Prop 100 into the background over the coming months.
I’m very interested to see how the Mills debacle plays out. Before Mills got into the race, Martin was up by 2 points on Brewer. If supporters of Mills begin to peel away, will they instead opt for Martin and make it a closer primary race between Brewer and Martin?
I don’t yet know the impact, but for now Brewer does have momentum…
Personally I think Arizona’s new law is a great law. We all recognize that we need to allow a better path to citizenship, but since the state can’t grant the citizenship the only way we can protect ourselves is to enforce harsher penalties against all illegal immigrants. We can’t sort the good and the bad until the Federal government acts. Instead of protesting our actions people should be petitioning their congressmen to reform immigration laws. We just want to keep the criminals and drug dealers out of our state.
Arizona is the valley of the Sun. Let’s boycott the Sun!
We are trying to protect ourselves from the growing crime problem. Not all illegals are criminals but a growing portion of our criminals are illegals. Unless the Federal government actually steps up to plate and takes action what are we supposed to do. Ignore the crime that is spilling across the borders. I wish we could deport all the criminals without effecting the good non-citizens and that is the intent of this law.
The law is designed to protect the citizen of Arizona as well as the undocumented immigrants. If an illegal reports a crime or requests police help they will not be prosecuted under this law.