Another surprise in Alabama Senate polling; Update: Second poll shows Moore by 7

The last four polls of the state tracked by RCP:

Jones +3 (50/47)
Moore +6 (49/43)
Moore +3 (49/46)

And now … Jones +4?

If you can’t believe in polls, what can you believe in?

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Former U.S. attorney G. Douglas Jones, a Democrat, holds a slim lead over his GOP challenger and two-time state chief justice Roy S. Moore with 48 percent to Moore’s 44 percent, according to the Big League-Gravis poll conducted Dec. 1 through Dec. 3 with 1,276 voters likely to vote in Alabama’s Dec. 12 special Senate election…

Kaplan said Jones is getting 93 percent of Democrats, while Moore only gets 76 percent of Republicans.

“Jones is also winning with self-identified Independents by more than 25 percent,” he said.

Although Jones leads by four here, he hasn’t gained on Moore. Gravis’s last poll of the state taken a few days after WaPo’s scandal story broke last month had Jones up five, 47/42. The news here, apart from the fact that recent polls are a murky stew that give no clear indication of who’s ahead, is that Jones has held the lead he gained over Moore in November. That contradicts various other polls that have showed Moore bouncing back after a slide following the WaPo report.

How to explain it? It must be that Gravis’s turnout model for next week is bluer than the models used by pollsters predicting a Moore win, right? Actually, no! That’s the biggest surprise. Gravis is seeing a very red electorate: 48 percent Republican, 33 percent Democrat, 19 percent independent. A CBS poll of Alabama released two days ago had Moore up six based on a very similar sample of 46 percent Republican, 32 percent Democrat, and 21 percent independent. Gravis is clearly expecting many more Republican crossover votes for Jones than CBS is. That’s hard to believe now that Trump and the RNC are back to cheerleading on Moore’s behalf but Jones *has* outraised and outspent Moore by large margins. And Moore wasn’t popular even before the claims of chasing — and assaulting — teenaged girls emerged.

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Moore, by the way, has now inexplicably taken to flatly denying that he knew any of his accusers despite having admitted to Sean Hannity on air last month that he knew at least two of them. John posted the audio of that in his item last night about the latest news, that Debbie Wesson Gibson found an inscription from him on a card she says she received from him when she was 17. Rod Dreher makes a good point about that: “The thing is, Gibson did not accuse Moore of doing anything improper with her when they dated, and said their physical relationship never went beyond kissing.” Right. Multiple women have accused him of chasing teenagers but only two, Leigh Corfman and Beverly Young Nelson, have claimed he did something illegal, Corfman insisting she was underaged when Moore approached her and Nelson alleging that Moore assaulted her in his car. If all of the women are lying to damage Moore politically, why aren’t their allegations way more lurid?

And why does the signature in Nelson’s yearbook, the veracity of which has been questioned by Team Moore, look strikingly similar to the signature on the card Gibson has?

Here’s your photo op of the year, from today’s lunch at the White House with senators, in which Trump reiterated his support for Moore. Yes, that’s Jeff Flake next to him, the anti-Trumper-in-chief, who said recently that he’d vote for Jones over Moore in Alabama.

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Update: Gravis says Jones by four, WBRC says Moore by seven. Which is correct? Your guess is as good as mine.

The exclusive poll of 3,200 likely Alabama voters finds if the election were held today, Moore would receive 50% of the vote to Jones with 43%. Four percent of the respondents remain undecided while three percent indicated plans to Write-In a candidate…

Strategy Research pollster Jon Gray said Moore’s support seems to have stabilized.

“A lot of momentum coming in on Roy Moore’s side,” Gray said. “I think we’re starting to see a change in the vote from a few weeks ago when Roy Moore was really losing Republicans across the board.”

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David Strom 5:20 PM | April 19, 2024
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