By Jim Ellis
Sept. 14, 2017 — Now just 13 days away from the Sept. 26 special Alabama Republican Senate run-off election two new polls have entered the public domain, likewise bringing bad news for appointed Sen. Luther Strange.
The senator has been languishing in surveys to varying degrees since the Aug. 15 primary election. All show him trailing, but the ones with sampling groups comprised primarily of evangelical voters find him down by very large margins, well into double-digits. Unfortunately for the Strange camp, these new polls project former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore to be holding equally large margins. They, however, do not feature strong evangelical-based sampling universes.
Strategic National (Sept. 6-7; 800 registered Alabama voters) polled the Alabama electorate and surveyed a respondent group that is 84 percent Republican with all saying there is minimally a 50/50 chance that they will vote in the run-off election, and the overwhelming majority claiming a much larger participation preponderance (81 percent certain to vote; 13 percent very likely; 6 percent, 50/50). Alabama does not register voters by political party; hence, the sample correctly included a fraction of self-identified Democrats and Independents who are eligible to cast ballots in a partisan run-off election.