Roy Moore leads in new Alabama Senate poll

Former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore holds a comfortable lead ahead of his opponents in Tuesday’s GOP primary for Alabama’s Senate seat, according to a new poll.

Moore now sits at 35 percent support in a new poll from the Trafalgar Group, with a 12-point gap between him and his closest competitor, Sen. Luther Strange (R-Ala.), who currently holds the seat.

Breaking our @trafalgar_group #ALSen #Poll 3.51% Brinson, 19.68% @mobrooksforsen, 35.07% @TeamMoore, 6.13% Pittman & 23.07% @lutherstrange pic.twitter.com/BpfSII8h5C

— Robert C. Cahaly (@RobertCahaly) August 11, 2017

Strange was appointed in February to fill the seat left open by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He sits at 23 percent support in the poll, just three points above Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), the only other Republican in the poll who breaks double-digit support. Candidates are competing to serve out the remainder of Sessions’s term, which ends in 2020.

Recent polls have shown Moore with somewhere between 30 percent and 35 percent support. A poll released Tuesday showed Moore with the highest favorability ratings of any candidate in the race. Fifty-three percent of Alabama voters view Moore favorably, compared with just 35 percent for Strange. 

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The race received national attention last month, when Brooks used audio of a shooting that injured Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) and four others in a campaign ad. A spokesman for Scalise said at the time that the ad made his “stomach turn.”

Polling of Alabama’s Senate race suggests that Moore is surging amid a collapse in support for Strange, despite the fact that Strange was endorsed by President Trump earlier this week. A poll released by Cygnal last week shows Strange down 10 points from the same poll in July. About half of that support went to Moore, according to the poll.

Cygnal 7/20: Strange 33% Moore 26% Brooks 16%
Cygnal 8/9: Strange 23% Moore 31% Brooks 18%#ALSen

— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) August 11, 2017

If no candidate hits 50 percent on Tuesday’s primary, the top two candidates will move on to a runoff on Sept. 26 before the general election in December.