About a week out from the all-important GOP primary for the U.S. Senate seat in Alabama vacated by now-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the Washington, DC, establishment candidate is slumping as two pro-President Trump conservatives surge. A new poll provided exclusively to Breitbart News by JMC Analytics, a Louisiana-based polling firm, shows Luther Strange tapering off in the polls as Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) surges behind him and former state Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore remains steady in first place.
The poll shows Moore at 30 percent, Strange at 22 percent, and Brooks at 19 percent. Others combine for a total of 12 percent, while 17 percent are undecided. The poll of 500 Alabamians likely to vote in next Tuesday’s primary was conducted from August 5 to August 6—during the weekend—with a 95 percent confidence interval and a margin of error of 4.4 percent. Assuming these numbers are accurate, they show Brooks surging behind Strange inside the margin of error in the final days—a silent majority similar to the one that elected President Donald Trump—while Moore maintains a solid lead at the top.
Alabama Senate Republican Executive Summary Release by Breitbart News on Scribd
The top-two vote-getters in next Tuesday’s primary will head to a runoff in September, and if Alabamians send Strange—who was appointed into the seat under questionable circumstances—packing, it would send a major message to Washington, DC. The GOP establishment, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, has aligned behind Strange, running millions of dollars of falsified attack ads inaccurately accusing Brooks of being anti-Trump. The attack ads have backfired, poll shows.
Both Brooks and Moore have condemned the phony ads from the Senate Leadership Fund in Alabama, which is run by anti-Trump Karl Rove acolyte Steven Law. Brooks was a supporter of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the GOP primary for president, but then strongly backed Trump in the general election.
Most Trump supporters see through Strange’s inaccurate attacks, funded by special interests in Washington, as Trump’s top campaign official in Alabama has joined the Brooks campaign, and most of Trump’s national supporters, from Women for Trump to Laura Ingraham to Sean Hannity to Ann Coulter to Mark Levin have endorsed Brooks.
Moore is a strong conservative in the race and also backs the president. Conservatives believe that a runoff between Moore and Brooks would send a strong signal to Washington, DC, and to the failed GOP leadership in the U.S. Congress that it is time to back President Trump and his agenda. It would also set a national precedent that the failures of the GOP establishment in Washington, led by McConnell—including but certainly not limited to the failure to repeal and replace Obamacare—are not electorally popular and cannot win elections. To win elections, in other words, Republicans would need to deliver the results on the matters on which Trump campaigned.
What’s more, as pollster John Couvillon told Breitbart News when providing the poll, it would show that despite the incumbency he was provided when appointed into Sessions’ seat and the millions of dollars spent on his behalf, Strange’s lack of support of the Trump agenda has made it hard for him to connect to voters in Alabama.
“Despite his incumbency and up to $8 million dollars being spent on his behalf (appointed) Senator Luther Strange is struggling to connect with GOP primary voters in Alabama,” Couvillon said in an email.
In the JMC poll’s analysis page, there is a key quote that further explains it all:
In summary, former Chief Justice Roy Moore appears to be a cinch for the September 26 runoff, while the other runoff slot is a close race between appointed incumbent Luther Strange (who is being hurt by the perceived connection to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell) and Congressman “Mo” Brooks.
Strange, the former attorney general of Alabama, was appointed to the Sessions seat in the U.S. Senate when the former senator was confirmed as the Attorney General of the United States in President Trump’s administration. Curiously, however, Strange was conducting an investigation into then-Gov. Robert Bentley over a scandal that later forced Bentley’s resignation. Bentley resigned after appointing Strange to the seat. The circumstances of Strange’s appointment—along with his deep connections to McConnell and the very anti-Trump Rove, whose acolyte is running the Senate Leadership Fund funding the attack ads—are murky at best. But, as Couvillon told Breitbart News, the fabricated incumbency and the millions of dollars in attack ads are not working.
Brooks is surging, just like Trump did in the final week or so before each of his electoral wins in the primary and general elections. And if Brooks gets into the runoff with Moore, as now appears possible, it is a huge win for conservatives. Alabama’s race is about to get a lot hotter in the final analysis.
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