With less than two weeks to go, support
for Democrat Doug Jones stood at 50 percent vs. Moore’s 47 percent
support among likely voters – a margin of a scant three points that sets
up a nail-biter for the oddly timed December 12 special election.
The survey shows that allegations of
improper sexual behavior against Moore, a former Alabama chief justice,
hang heavily over a race that would favor a Republican under ordinary
circumstances in this deeply conservative state.
Fifty-three percent of voters said Jones, a
former federal prosecutor, had higher standards or personal moral
conduct than Moore. In contrast, about a third of likely voters said
Moore, who has cast his campaign as a “spiritual battle” with heavy
religious overtones, had higher moral standards.
Among the 1 in 4 voters who said the
candidates’ moral conduct will be the most important factor in their
vote, Jones led, 67 percent to 30 percent.
And Jones, whose strategy relies in part
on peeling way Republican support from Moore, had the backing of 1 in 6
GOP-leaning likely voters. About 1 in 14 Democratic-leaning voters were
backing Moore.
The race, in which the winner will fill
the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Jeff Sessions when he became attorney
general, has taken on national importance because of its implications
for the Republican majority in the Senate. If Jones wins, the GOP would
control the chamber by only 51 seats to 49.
Moore led Jones in most public polls
before allegations became public last month, but support for Moore fell
sharply afterward, with a mid-November Fox News poll showing him falling
behind Jones by eight points. More recent automated surveys have found
Moore regaining a slight edge.
The Post-Schar School poll was conducted
Monday to Thursday by the research firm Abt Associates among a sample of
749 likely voters and carried a 4.5-point margin of sampling error. To
avoid influencing the answers of respondents with opinions about The
Post’s coverage of allegations against Moore, interviewers disclosed The
Post’s sponsorship of the survey only at the end of the interviews.
The survey shows that the Alabama
electorate is divided on the validity of the allegations against Moore.
While 35 percent of likely voters thought Moore did make unwanted
advances on teenage girls, 37 percent said they were unsure or had no
opinion. The smallest group – 28 percent of likely voters – said Moore
did not make the advances that were alleged.
Women were more likely than men to find
the allegations credible and to support Jones, with 41 percent of women
saying Moore made unwanted advances compared with 28 percent of men
saying the same. Moore led by 15 points among men likely to vote, while
Jones led by 18 points among likely female voters.
There is also a stark partisan and
ideological divide in how voters have processed the allegations, with
many Republicans and GOP-leaning groups expressing skepticism.
Fewer than 1 in 6 Republican-leaning
likely voters said they believed that Moore made unwanted advances
toward female teenagers. That view was held among similarly small shares
of white evangelical Protestants and those who said they approve of
President Trump, who in recent days has questioned the allegations and
urged Alabamians to prevent Jones from winning the seat.
More than three-quarters of each of those groups were supporting Moore over Jones.
At the same time, Jones was running well
ahead of his own party’s dismal track record in a state that last
elected a Democratic U.S. senator in 1992, when Sen. Richard C. Shelby
won. He defected to the Republican Party two years later.
In the Post-Schar School poll, Jones had
the backing of 33 percent of white voters in the state. Barack Obama won
just 15 percent of white votes in Alabama in his 2012 presidential
reelection, according to exit polls.
“On the allegations, they have made an
impact. There is no doubt,” said Mark J. Rozell, the dean of the Schar
School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. “Anybody
with an R next to their name should be comfortably ahead in this state.”
A sizable share of Alabama’s
Republican-leaning voters are clearly torn over the choice before them
as they weigh their concerns about Moore against their desire to see
Alabama send another Republican to the U.S. Senate.
Fewer than half, 44 percent, of likely
voters said they would prefer to see a Democrat representing Alabama in
the U.S. Senate, while 50 percent of likely voters said they favored
electing a Republican.
Others said that they were unlikely to
vote because they disliked both candidates. “I’m fed up. A lot of people
are down here,” said Terry Anderson, 54, of Hartford, Ala. Anderson is
an independent who participated in the poll and said he was not going to
vote. “I think I’ll just let it all fall out on its own.”
Republican-leaning likely voters were
particularly unhappy with the role that national Republican leaders
calling for Moore to drop out has played in the race. Nearly 3 in 4 said
that outsiders should stay out of Alabama politics, while one-fourth
said the national Republican leaders were justified in voicing their
opinions.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,
R-Ky., and other senior GOP senators have called on Moore to exit the
race, and conservative stalwarts such as Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Ted
Cruz, R-Texas, have withdrawn their endorsements of Moore. The
Republican National Committee and the National Republican Senatorial
Committee have cut ties with the Moore campaign.
In Alabama, the Republican Party has
closed ranks around Moore, arguing either that the allegations against
him are questionable or that putting a Republican in the U.S. Senate is a
more important consideration. Shelby, Alabama’s senior senator, is the
only statewide elected official to announce that he did not vote for
Moore but opted to write in a different person’s name.
Republicans have a clear advantage in
party identification in Alabama, and Trump defeated Hillary Clinton by
28 points in the state last November. But Democrats said they were more
enthusiastic about turning out for the special election. By 47 percent
to 38 percent, more Democratic-leaning voters than Republican-leaning
voters said it was “extremely important” to vote in the election.
Democratic-leaners were also 12 points more likely to say they were
following the race “very closely,” and 10 points more likely to say they
were “absolutely certain to vote.”
Jones’s campaign is banking on strong
support and turnout among African American voters, who made up
one-quarter of likely voters in the Post-Schar School poll. African
American likely voters supported the Democrat 93 percent to 6 percent.
Countering Democrats’ enthusiasm, Moore’s
supporters have voted more in recent low-turnout elections, including
the U.S. Senate primary in which Moore prevailed.
Several women have accused Moore, 70, of
initiating unwanted sexual encounters with them, mostly when they were
teenagers and he was in his 30s. Leigh Corfman told The Post that she
was 14 at the time of the alleged encounter. Moore has denied the
allegations of sexual misconduct, arguing that he is the victim of a
political conspiracy by Republicans, Democrats, the news media,
socialists and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people “who want
to change our culture.”
At the same time, Moore has not ruled out
that he dated teenagers with their parents’ permission when he was in
his 30s. “If I did, I’m not going to dispute these things, but I don’t
remember anything like that,” Moore said on Sean Hannity’s radio show on
Nov. 10 in response to claims that he had dated 17- or 18-year-old
girls.
Other women interviewed by The Post in
recent weeks said that Moore pursued them when they were between the
ages of 16 and 18, while he was in his early 30s. The Post has spoken to
a dozen people who worked at the Gadsden Mall in Gadsden, Alabama, in
the late 1970s and early 1980s and said they recalled Moore as a
frequent presence. Several women who worked there said they remember
Moore making them feel uncomfortable.
The Alabama electorate was nearly
unanimous in its view that men in their 30s should not date 16-year-old
girls. Among likely voters, 91 percent said such relationships are never
appropriate. Fifty-six percent said older men dating teenagers was not
more acceptable back in the 1970s, although 32 percent thought it had
been more acceptable, including 41 percent of Moore’s supporters.
Of the social issues that have dominated
much of the debate in the race, abortion has been a bigger asset for
Moore than his campaign focus of fighting against those who would
increase protections for gay, lesbian and transgender people.
Just over 3 in 10 Republicans and
Republican-leaning independents said they trusted Jones more to handle
rights for gay and transgender people, while 51 percent said they had
greater trust in Moore. By contrast, 80 percent of the same group
expressed greater trust for Moore on abortion, and 78 percent trusted
him more on health care.
Moore has argued that judges who support
same-sex-marriage or legalized sodomy should be impeached, as both
positions go against his view of divine law, which he says has supreme
authority over the Constitution.
Republican-leaning voters with college
degrees are among the most likely to trust Jones on gay and transgender
rights – 44 percent trust him, while 39 percent trust Moore. Among
Republicans with some college education or less, Moore leads, 57 percent
to 25 percent on trust to handle these issues.
The poll was conducted by The Post and
the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University via
landline and cellphone.
The Washington Post’s Emily Guskin contributed to this report.
BY:Writter
Birbal Tamang
No comments:
Post a Comment