BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — A second Alabama special Senate election poll has Judge Roy Moore, the GOP nominee for the U.S. Senate, up six points over radical leftist Democrat Doug Jones ahead of the December 12 election, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
Alabama Memo 112217 by Breitbart News on Scribd
Moore, at 43 percent, leads Jones—who lags down at 37 percent—by six points in a survey conducted between November 18 and November 21 by Atlantic Media and Research. The poll memo, provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its public release by Atlantic’s Rick Shaftan, shows that the survey includes 623 likely voters and has a margin of error of 3.9 percent. It is the second poll in as many days to come out showing Moore with a six-point lead over Jones, as a survey out on Tuesday by WT&S Consulting also showed Moore leading Jones by six points.
This survey done by Atlantic Media and Research, per Shaftan’s memo, was “completed at the request of several major SuperPAC donors” and conducted with calls made by “live operators to both landlines and cellphones,” including 43 percent cell phones, something that increases accuracy.
Shaftan also weighted the data to what he calls a “worst case scenario” for Moore, where young and black voters turn out at historically high levels—something that would help Jones—and found that Moore still leads Jones in that scenario.
“Republican Roy Moore holds a 43-40 lead over Democrat Doug Jones under a ‘worst case’ weighting scenario where younger voters turn out at a level equal to that in the 2014 general election,” Shaftan wrote. “Moore led 43-37 in the raw data. Both candidates have high negatives. Roy Moore has a favorable rating of 31 percent and an unfavorable rating of 39 percent. But Jones is also a net negative, with just 32 percent viewing him favorably and 35 percent unfavorably.”
Shaftan adds, though, that Jones has hardly any pathway to victory. He is boxed off with a much worse position than Moore with just a few weeks until Election Day since no voter blocs seem to be trending his way.
“These numbers are a bigger problem for Jones than Moore, however,” Shaftan wrote. “While 88 percent of Jones unfavorables are voting for Moore, Jones is only able to win 75 percent of Moore unfavorables, while Moore still holds 8 percent of their votes. Moore also runs strongly with the 11 percent of voters who have a mixed opinion of him, winning 71 percent among those voters. By contrast, Jones gets only 43 percent of the 5 percent of voters with a mixed opinion of him. Those with a mixed opinion on Moore are essentially favorable. While many voters continue to look at Moore with an open mind, there is little room for Jones to grow outside of his Democratic Party base because few conservative voters are abandoning Moore in this very conservative state.”
Shaftan’s survey asked respondents for further details, too, on why they like or dislike the two candidates—and the real telling data is in why people dislike either Moore or Jones.
Jones’s support for full-term abortion—something he has tried unsuccessfully to walk back in recent days—kills him in Alabama.
“With Jones unfavorables, 37 percent mention his pro-abortion position, 33 percent dislike that he is a Democrat or Liberal, 7 percent say he is running a smear campaign against Moore, 6 percent dislike him personally, 6 percent dislike his views, 4 percent dislike that he is running against Moore, 2 percent call him a liar,” Shaftan wrote.
But in the case of Moore, the stories of evidence-free allegations of sexual misconduct—stories that have come under serious scrutiny in recent days as key details have crumbled—are much less profoundly hurting him than Jones’s full-term abortion support hurts him.
“With Moore unfavorables, 32 percent mention the allegations, 16 percent say he was thrown off the court twice, 9 percent dislike him personally, 7 percent call him a hypocrite who uses God, 7 percent call him a liar, 5 percent say he is a zealot, extreme or too conservative, 3 percent say he is a grandstander or demagogue, 3 percent mention that he is Republican, 2 percent dislike his record, 2 percent dislike his views on gay marriage,” Shaftan wrote.
With that being said, Moore has a lot of room to make up if he can get past the allegations and back onto the issues.
“Among those with a mixed opinion of Moore, 58 percent mention the scandal, 8 percent that he was removed from the court, 6 percent say he is a zealot, 6 percent call him a liar, and 5 percent a grandstander,” Shaftan wrote.
What’s more, despite a false media narrative that Moore is somehow struggling with women, he is not. He is performing equally across gender lines. The real divide in the race, per Shaftan, is along racial lines—with black voters turning en masse to Jones and whites and all others turning en masse to Moore.
“There is no gender gap in this race with Moore up by 3 with both men and women,” Shaftan wrote. “Those identified on the voter file as African American are voting 74-9 for Jones. Moore wins all others by 54-26. Jones leads 41-40 with voters under 65, while Moore holds a solid 48-33 lead among those 65 and over.”
Shaftan writes that undecided voters are “low-hanging fruit” for Moore in the coming days, as 57 percent of undecided voters are conservative or libertarian—more than the rest of the electorate as a whole. As such, Shaftan concludes, this race is Moore’s to win—and barring a miracle for the Democrats, they stand zero chance of seeing Jones elected to the Senate.
“The worst of the storm is over, and Moore holds a lead that at worst case scenario is three points,” Shaftan wrote. “He retains a strong following, and even many of those concerned about the scandal are voting for him anyway. Jones’s leftist agenda, including his strong and passionate advocacy for late-term abortions, has defined him as a radical extremist out of touch with Alabama voters. Once Thanksgiving and the Iron Bowl are out of the way, Alabamians will begin focusing on this race with scandal allegations fading in the rear-view mirror. If Jones isn’t leading now, there’s no way he’s going to come back once the race returns to issues. Alabama is just too conservative a state to elect a radical pro-abortion extremist, even over a controversial candidate hated by the national party.”
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