All eyes are on Alabama. After months in the national spotlight, Tuesday, voters will cast their ballots in the special election to fill a seat left by now Attorney General Sessions.
As we’ve discussed at length, polling after the allegations were made public showed supporters rallying behind Moore as the national press corps and the political class called for Moore to step down.
Last minute polling is all over the place. Several polls released Monday completely contradict one another. Roy Moore, the Republican challenger, has been embroiled in scandal after numerous allegations of sexual misconduct with several teenage girls some thirty years ago. As the allegations state, Moore was in his thirties at the time.
A Fox News poll conducted Thursday had Democrat Doug Jones ahead of Moore by a whopping 10 points.
That’s according to a Fox News Poll of Alabama voters conducted Thursday through Sunday using traditional polling techniques, including a list-based probability sample with both landlines and cellphones.Jones receives 50 percent to Moore’s 40 percent, with 1-in-10 undecided (8 percent) or supporting another candidate (2 percent) — which could make a difference Tuesday. That’s even truer with such an unconventional election with unconventional candidates.
Fox’s poll is in stark contrast to one released by Emerson College which shows Moore with a nine-point lead, up six points since last week.
In the final Emerson College poll before the election, GOP candidate Roy Moore now leads the Democratic candidate Doug Jones 53% to 44%, a six point bump from last week’s Emerson poll. The poll suggests Moore has weathered the storm of alleged sexual misconduct; The survey has a sample size of 600 very likely voters, and has a margin of error of +/-3.9 percentage points. Since the Emerson Poll of Nov. 12, a few days after allegations of sexual misconduct, Moore’s lead dropped from 10 points, to 6 points Nov. 26, and to 3 points last week on Dec. 3. A major event that might have contributed to Moore’s improved poll numbers is his endorsement by President Trump this past weekend. The President is more popular than either candidate with a 55%/40% favorable/unfavorable rating; Moore is at 45%/45% and Jones at 43%/45%.
Yet another conducted by Monmouth shows the race as a dead heat, favoring Jones if turnout is high and Moore if turnout is low:
According to polling aggregation on Real Clear Politics, the Fox News poll appears to be an outlier, with Moore consistently polling results over Jones, even after the allegations of sexual misconduct broke. His lead has diminished these last weeks but is still a lead nonetheless.
Both former President Obama and President Trump have gotten involved in the race.
Axios reported that Alabama voters (specifically black voters) are receiving pre-recorded robocalls from the former president, urging them to reject Roy Moore.
Trump too has thrown his weight into the race, recording robocalls supporting Moore and tweeting in support of the Republican candidate.
The electoral showdown will be portrayed as many things it’s not, simply because it’s always politically expedient to do so. It’s not a referendum on the GOP or Trump, it’s simply a case of Alabama voters casting their ballots in the manner they see fit.
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