Poll: Obama, Romney 'dead even' in Republican-leaning Arizona

A new poll shows President Obama tied with GOP challenger Mitt Romney in Arizona, a state where Romney leads in most surveys and that generally breaks for Republican presidential candidates.

The Behavior Research Center poll released Saturday shows Obama ahead of Romney 42-40 percent among registered voters and 44-42 percent among likely voters. Both tallies are within the poll’s 4.4 percent margin of error, making the race “dead even,” a summary of the results states.

The new survey bucks other polls of the Grand Canyon State, which have generally shown Romney ahead, often by comfortable margins.

The state has voted Democratic just once in the last 10 presidential elections, when President Clinton bested challenger Bob Dole in 1996.

The new Arizona poll shows Romney beating Obama among Caucasian voters by 16 points. But Obama holds a 67-point lead among the state’s Latino voters.

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