Hayworth Closes in on McCain

Despite a string of high-profile endorsements, the latest Rasmussen poll shows Senator McCain leading primary challenger JD Hayworth by only seven percentage points, down from his 22 point lead in January.

Despite a string of high-profile endorsements and a drift to the right on economic policy, Senator John McCain lost ground to JD Hayworth in the latest poll.

In a Rasmussen poll released on Wednesday, McCain leads Hayworth by only seven percentage points, down from his 22 percentage-point lead in January. Currently, forty-eight percent of likely Republican primary voters support McCain, forty-one support JD Hayworth, eight percent are undecided and three percent support another candidate.

The McCain-Hayworth race has been back-and-forth for months. In the fall, McCain and Hayworth were in a dead heat. Then, earlier this year, McCain had a wide lead over the former talk show host. Now, five months away from the primary, the race is competitive again.

McCain’s trouble continues to be Arizona’s conservative grassroots.  Among self-described “conservatives,” Hayworth leads the former GOP presidential candidate by five percent. Among liberal and moderate Republicans, however, McCain has a wide lead. If the Arizona GOP primary is closed off from independent voters, as state party officials hope, the primary might be dominated by the anti-McCain conservative party base.