As politics heats up in coming weeks and months, I’ll start sharing some of the emails and press releases being sent over to the Opelika Daily News. Today from the Republican Camps!
A poll conducted last week commissioned by a Montgomery political consulting and public relations company indicates the races for Governor and Attorney General in the Republican primary are very open, with many voters still undecided.
At a news conference today, Public Strategy Associates announced the results of the poll conducted February 3-4 by Baselice & Associates, Inc., an Austin, Texas polling company. PSA brought Mike Baselice, CEO of the polling company, to Montgomery to explain the details of the survey of 1,007 likely Republican primary voters.
In the race for Governor of Alabama, Mr. Baselice’s firm found that, if the Republican primary were held today, 20% of voters would choose Bradley Byrne, 17% Roy Moore, 8% Tim James, 4% Robert Bentley, 3% Kay Ivey, and 2% Bill Johnson, with the remaining 46% undecided.
Survey data in the Republican Primary for Attorney General indicated that Troy King (27%) and Luther Strange (24%) are in a statistical dead-heat with 49% of voters undecided. As for the 2012 race for President, Mike Huckabee came in at 33%, Sarah Palin at 23%, Mitt Romney at 12%, Ron Paul at 5%, Tim Pawlenty at 2% and undecided at 24%.
“The race for Governor is wide open, and the Republican Party in Alabama is strong. The high amount of undecided voters gives all the candidates an opportunity to make their case in the next four months,” said Brent Buchanan, a senior partner in Public Strategy Associates. “Contested Primaries make for good voter turnout, and we are excited about the gains the GOP is sure to make in 2010,” Buchanan added.
Jack Campbell, also a partner in PSA said, “In the words of Yogi Berra, ‘Nobody said it was gonna be easy.’ This poll proves that running for office takes a lot of hard work to get the message out, and we are bound to hear many messages between now and June 1st.”
“Whoever can increase their name identification the most between now and June 1st will likely be the winner in the Governor and Attorney General races respectively. Since we didn’t poll name ID, but only a generic ballot, it appears most of the candidates have a lot of potential for upward momentum,” said pollster Mike Baselice. “It will all come down to who can get a message that resonates in front of the most Republican voters the most amount of times,” he concluded.
The lists used in conducting the poll were provided by Matt Braynard of the Braynard Group, Inc. of Arlington, Virginia, a center-right company specializing in voter targeting, internet development and fundraising strategy. The Braynard Group has been instrumental in over 100 races in Alabama during the past few cycles.
“It’s always encouraging to see such a positive response among Republican voters whereby 90% of the respondents of the poll said they definitely plan to vote in the June 1st Primary,” Matt Braynard said.
