(The Center Square) – President Donald Trump’s approval rating among Arizonans declined 16 percentage points from February to December, a new poll shows.
Noble Predictive Insights released a poll showing that Arizonans’ favorability toward Trump fell from +3% to -13% over a nine-month period.
Mike Noble, CEO of Noble Predictive Insights, told The Center Square that Trump’s unfavorable approval rating goes back to pocketbook issues.
“There’s been a lot of uncertainty created with a lot of the rapid changes in domestic policy that give voters a little bit of unease,” he explained.
Noble said Trump’s sliding approval rating in Arizona is “a flashing red warning light for Republicans – and a clear opening for Democrats.”
“In a state decided on the margins, an unpopular president changes the math,” he noted.
Like Trump, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs’ approval rating has gone down, according to the poll. In February, it stood at +6%, but in December 2025, it fell to +1%, a decrease of 5 percentage points.
“Incumbents can survive middling approval numbers, but sustained growth in disapproval is harder to outrun,” Noble noted. “Republicans will look at these trends and see a governor who has not consolidated public confidence heading into a critical election year.”
The poll found the main issues Arizonans cared about were inflation (48%), affordable housing (46%) and health care (41%). Health care and affordable housing saw the largest increases in Arizonans voting them as important issues from February to December, the poll showed.
Immigration (38%) used to be among the top three issues Arizonans cared most about, but that slipped from February to December.
Noble said this was due to border-crossing numbers declining under the Trump administration compared to the Biden administration.
The poll showed 52% of Arizonans view their state heading in the wrong direction, while 48% say it’s in the right direction. These numbers are a far change from March 2021, when 56% of Arizonans thought the state was going in the correct direction.
Noble said the cost of pocketbook issues is the “primary driver” of why Arizonans feel the state is going the wrong way.
“For Arizonans who have been here for more than five years, Arizona’s always been known as a low-cost-of-living state. You look at every metric [and] that is not the case,” Noble stated.
In politics, Noble told The Center Square that this year’s gubernatorial race will be “very competitive” and that Arizona will be another key battleground state for Democrats and Republicans.
An Emerson College poll from December showed Hobbs beating the Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidates, Andy Biggs or Karrin Taylor Robson, by 1 percentage point. Biggs and Robson were both endorsed by President Donald Trump.
The other Republican candidate, Rep. David Schweikert, R-Scottsdale, trailed Hobbs by 5 percentage points.
The margin of error for the Emerson College poll was plus or minus 3.3%, which means Hobbs is in a statistical tie with Biggs or Taylor Robson.
Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan election analyzer, rates the Arizona gubernatorial race as a toss up.
