Alabama Polls: Judge Roy Moore Maintains Double Digit Lead Over Democrat Doug Jones
CNN
by Matthew Boyle
Breitbart.com
MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Two new polls demonstrate that GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate Judge Roy Moore remains unaffected entirely by smears in the Washington Post against him, and his lead before the Post piece on Thursday afternoon remains intact.
One of the polls, which were both provided by the pollster to Breitbart News exclusively on Saturday evening, was conducted on Thursday morning before the publication of the Post piece that afternoon. The second one was conducted on Saturday evening. Together, they show Judge Moore’s lead over Democrat Doug Jones has been virtually unaffected since the Post story came out.
The first survey, which was conducted entirely before noon local time on Thursday, shows Moore leading Jones by 50 percent to 39.2 percent with 10.8 percent undecided. That survey of 1,354 likely voters in the upcoming Dec. 12 special election has a margin of error of 3.5 percent.
The second survey, conducted Saturday evening—two days after the Post piece hit, roiling Alabama’s political scene—shows Moore and Jones with about the exact same percentages as before. Moore’s position in this second poll is 49.8 percent—meaning he only dropped 0.2 percent since the story hit—and Jones has only picked up 0.4 percent to reach 39.6 percent total. The second survey, which polled 1,536 likely voters with a margin of error of 3.3 percent, has 10.5 percent as undecided.
“The polling between Thursday morning and Saturday showed far less movement than I originally expected,” pollster John Wahl told Breitbart News. “The controversy surrounding the Washington Post article seems to have galvanized the support of both candidates, but not changed the actual percentages in a significant manner. The Moore campaign has already weathered a considerable amount of political attacks during this campaign season, and I expect most of his lightest support to have blown off during these attacks. His current support level is holding fairly steady.”
Wahl is a local Alabama pollster, based in the state, and is regarded for his accuracy in the state. The pollster’s firm, WT&S Consulting, did some work for Moore’s campaign in the primary and runoff—but these polls, Breitbart News has confirmed, were not commissioned by Moore’s campaign and were conducted independently. That said, WT&S Consulting nailed the runoff numbers accurately. Its last poll, the day before the runoff election, showed Moore crushing establishment-backed appointed Sen. Luther Strange 54.3 percent to 45.7 percent—an 8.6 percent gap. The final election results were 54.6 percent for Moore to 45.4 percent for Strange—or a 9.2 percent gap.
“The voters of Alabama know Roy Moore and what he stands for. Alabama is also a very red state where any Republican candidate is going to have a very high floor to start with,” Wahl told Breitbart News. “So far it seems the people of Alabama believe Roy Moore is more credible than the Washington Post.”
These polls come after reports from a number of news outlets—including a local ABC News affiliate, national NBC News, CNN, and others—have trouble finding anyone in Alabama who actually believes the Washington Post story.