Conventional wisdom generally holds that the Phoenix metropolitan area is much more conservative than the Tucson metropolitan area, usually attributed to the voter registration numbers. When it comes to polling, you would expect Republicans to fare better in Phoenix than in Tucson and vice versa for Democrats. A look at the composition of the legislature validates those assumptions.

So what is up with the SurveyUSA numbers for the Senate race and Bush's approve/disapprove divide?

On Setember 19, SUSA published the tracking results of their latest statewide polls of the races for Governor and Senator, on behalf of KPNX-TV. Not surprisingly, Janet leads Munsil in all three regions ("Tucson & South AZ", "Phoenix Metro", "Rest of AZ"), but her largest lead - 19 points - is in the Phoenix Metro region. What is more confusing to me, and I've already commented on it here, is that Kyl leads Pederson in the Tucson & South AZ region by 16 points. They're statistically tied in the Phoenix Metro region, with Pederson actually up by two. We don't usually get to see these kinds of cross-tabs in most independent polls released to the general public, so these numbers are difficult to verify with other polling outfits.

I thought maybe these regional results were just a fluke, so I looked at SUSA's Arizona numbers for their monthly presidential approval poll for September. Bush is at 43%/55% approve/disapprove statewide. He is exactly tied 50%/50% in the Tucson and South AZ region and suffers his greatest deficit in the Phoenix Metro region, where 40% of respondents approved of the job he is doing as President and a whopping 58% disapprove.

Don't these numbers seem topsy-turvy to anyone else? Bush should have abysmal ratings in Tucson. Pederson should be trouncing Kyl here. Janet's lead should be bigger here than in Phoenix. Is the conventional wisdom wrong, or are these polls? Am I missing something? Am I reading too much into it? Please discuss in the comments. I'd really like to hear some plausible explanations, because I'm at a loss.