MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Judge Roy Moore, the conservative GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate in Alabama, maintains a solid lead over Democrat Doug Jones, a new poll obtained exclusively by Breitbart News shows.
The poll from WT&S Consulting of 11,641 likely voters conducted from November 18 to November 20, with a margin of error of 1.2 percent, has Moore at 46.4 percent—towering six points over Jones, who is stuck down at 40.5 percent—while 13.1 percent are undecided.
The survey includes 60.9 percent Republicans and 39.1 percent Democrats—approximately the margins by which President Donald Trump defeated failed 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton in Alabama.
“This survey shows Roy Moore tracking down slightly since the allegations were released by the Washington Post but still holding a 5.9 percent lead,” pollster John Wahl told Breitbart News.
“Undecided had the most significant increase while Doug Jones also gained some support over the last ten days. Polling has been all over the place in this special election for U.S. Senate. I have seen numbers ranging from Roy Moore being ten points up to him being eight points down, and that’s surveys conducted during the same time frame. There have even been polls where Barack Obama had a higher favorable rating than Donald Trump. Clearly, that does not properly represent the voting history we have seen in Alabama’s past elections. My objective with this survey was to get some clarity on where this race actually is. I wanted to survey a massive sampling of registered voters and let them speak for themselves. With 11,641 respondents, I feel we have accomplished that mission.”
Wahl’s firm has done some work for the Moore campaign this election cycle, but before the runoff in the GOP primary where Moore smoked appointed incumbent Sen. Luther Strange to win the nomination by nearly double digits.
This survey comes on the heels of a handful of others showing a closer race—or a Jones lead. A Fox News survey showed Jones with an eight-point lead, but that poll—which Wahl referenced in his quote—showed former President Barack Obama’s favorability as higher than Trump’s in Alabama, something entirely inaccurate. Online surveys that showed a tie between Strange and Moore walking into the runoff now also show a tie between Moore and Jones, even though their track record is not the best. Wahl’s polls in Alabama proved to be the most accurate ahead of the runoff, as they came within a percentage point of nailing the outcome; his last poll predicted Moore would win by 8.6 percent, and Moore actually won by 9.2 percent.
This survey comes after Moore has weathered one of the biggest scandals in recent GOP senatorial history, where the Washington Post and Gloria Allred have hit Moore in recent weeks with allegations of sexual misconduct. Several holes and inconsistencies in those stories have emerged, however, and Moore has powered through—all while Jones’s radical positions on major campaign issues have come to the forefront. Jones, who has attempted to present himself as a moderate, opposes President Trump’s border wall, plans to vote against tax cuts, supports full-term abortion and amnesty for illegal aliens, and believes in “limitations” on the Second Amendment—all while wrapping himself up in the LGBTQ community’s activist agenda—something that puts him at odds with mainstream voters in Alabama.
Moore’s team has battled the allegations vociferously by framing this as a fight between him and the Washington establishment led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and now heading into Thanksgiving—with two full weeks of campaigning left after the holidays before the December 12 runoff—is aiming for something of a reset in the final weeks to focus on the agenda issues that matter to the voters rather than unfounded allegations with no evidence from decades ago.
WT&S’s last survey, conducted in the thick of the scandal, had Moore up ten percent over Jones—something that was in line with Emerson College Polling Society numbers released about the same time. Similarly, Emerson correctly predicted the runoff results.
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