MONTGOMERY, Ala. – With just two weeks to go until election day, Katherine Robertson leads Jay Mitchell by around 18 points in the Republican runoff for attorney general, according to a new voter survey from the Alabama Poll.
Robertson was the choice for nearly half – 49.1% – of 600 likely Republican runoff voters surveyed compared to 31.2% for Mitchell.
The 18-point difference is the highest between candidates in any runoff race in this latest edition of the poll, Alabama Poll Founder Michael Lowry said in a memo about the results. It also suggests Robertson has increased her vote share since the May 19 primary, when she won just 40.5% of the vote, compared to Mitchell’s 34.4% and Blount County District Attorney Pamela Casey’s 25.1%.
Casey has since endorsed Mitchell, the former Alabama Supreme Court justice, and is campaigning on his behalf.
The poll was conducted statewide on May 28. It has a margin of error of ±4%.
Survey analysis
Lowry said Robertson has essentially made herself the incumbent in the campaign.
“Katherine, I think, is going to win this thing running away,” Lowry said. “I just don’t see a way that Jay can make up those margins. He would have to convert the undecideds at a 4-1 ratio, and within that, he’s still going to have to peel away support from Katherine, her soft voters. But if you look, her vote percentage is right there with her approval, so she doesn’t have a whole lot of soft support.”
While Robertson’s favorability rating is essentially the same share as those who would vote for her, Mitchell has a gap of 7 points. Just over 38% of those surveyed said they view Mitchell favorably, but only around 31% said they’d vote for Mitchell if the election were held today. Mitchell also trails with voters who said they view both candidates favorably. Robertson leads that group by 26.7 points.
A full 19.7% of those polled were still firmly undecided about the contest.
Lowry said Mitchell needs some major swings to go his way in the last two weeks to close that gap.
“He’s going to have to spend money to capture the people that say they like him but they’re not voting for him yet, so he’s going to have to be advertising, trying to bring his own people back home, and Katherine’s already secured all of her people in that regard,” he said.
The Mitchell campaign released a statement dismissing the Alabama Poll’s results, calling it “yet another bogus suppression poll, similar to the one published before the primary that also claimed Jay was trailing by double digits. Alabama voters proved that wrong.”
Alabama Daily News partnered with Gray Television stations to commission a Cygnal poll in April that showed Robertson leading Mitchell by 12 points with 46% undecided. Come election day on May 19, Mitchell only trailed Robertson by six points.
Regional, ideological demographics
Robertson leads by 36.8 points in the Mobile market, 34 in the city of Montgomery, 15.1 in the Birmingham market and 4.5 in Huntsville/Congressional District 5.
She’s also ahead in Jefferson County and the suburbs of Birmingham, but by less than one point in each. Lowry identified those two areas as the most competitive for Mitchell.
Robertson leads with voters of all ages, except for the 30-40 age bloc. Mitchell leads that group by 13.7 points.
Robertson also wins men by 20.5 points and women by 15.5.
Robertson also leads with every ideological cohort, though her lead slims to 12.2 points with voters who identify as very conservative.
With two weeks left on the campaign trail, Robertson also has the larger cash reserve.
She had a war chest of $184,000, as of Monday evening. Mitchell had $97,000.
The runoff election will take place on June 16.
Read the full results from the Alabama Poll HERE.