Campaign

Dem just 6 points behind in Alabama Senate race: poll

by Ben Kamisar - 09/29/17 2:08 PM ET

Alabama Republican Roy Moore leads Democrat Doug Jones by less than 6 points in a new Senate special election poll that’s likely to raise questions about whether the deep-red state is in play.

Moore, the controversial former judge who won Tuesday’s GOP primary runoff, leads Moore by a margin of 50.2 percent to 44.5 percent in a new poll conducted by Opinion Savvy and commissioned by Decision Desk HQ. About 5 percent of polled voters said they were undecided.

Democrats are cautiously eying the race in the hopes that Moore’s penchant for controversy can help them pull a surprise upset. Moore has a solid base of support among the state’s evangelical community, a reliable voting bloc, thanks to losing his position as chief justice of the state Supreme Court twice for disregarding court orders on the separation of church and state and gay marriage.

{mosads}But he’s also drawn serious criticism for both those decisions as well as some controversial comments he’s made in the past. He’s argued that terror attacks and violence may have been caused by a drift away from religion, that homosexual conduct should be illegal, and said that a Muslim congressman shouldn’t be seated in Congress.

Democratic groups are eying the dynamics of the race over the next few weeks to see how to engage. But while the polling could mean the race is within reach, it could also be encouraging to Republicans too.

Moore has the support of the majority of supporters in the poll just days after a brutal primary where the Republican establishment spent millions to bludgeon him. So it’s possible that as Republican groups fall in line behind the nominee, Moore can consolidate even more support.

Opinion Savvy polled 590 likely voters on Wednesday and Thursday. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

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