Russell Pearce (R/AZ-Nativist) trails in his recall election (next Tuesday)

[pampango]

A poll released last night by the Arizona Capitol Times and ABC15 News shows Legislative District 18 recall election opponents Senate President Russell Pearce and political newcomer Jerry Lewis in a dead heat. The poll indicates that Lewis has 46 percent of the vote while Pearce has 43 percent, but the numbers are within the poll's margin of error of 3.95 percentage points. The poll indicated that 8.5 percent of those polled were undecided.

Among the 160 polled who described themselves as Mormon, 47.5 percent indicated support for Lewis and 45 percent for Pearce. Among Republicans, Lewis got 45.6 percent of the support while Pearce got 45.3 percent. Democrats favored Lewis 51 percent to 36.4 percent.

Candidate Olivia Cortes dropped out of the race several weeks ago amid allegations that she was a sham candidate put on the vote by Pearce supporters to pull votes from Lewis. She withdrew too late for her name to be removed from the ballot, but votes cast for her will not count.

We're also seeing a flurry of last-minute mailers, videos and media releases from both sides. Pearce's campaign and groups supporting Pearce have pushed a heavily negative campaign in recent weeks, including various personal attacks and allegations that Lewis is backed by liberals and labor unions.

http://www.azcentral.com/members/Blog/PoliticalInsider/147784

Some reason for optimism that Pearce may actually be recalled.