Exclusive Gray TV/Alabama Daily News Poll shows Ivey could face runoff in governor’s race | #republicans | #Alabama | #GOP

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) – The Republican primary in the Alabama Governor’s race may be tightening to a point that Governor Ivey could face a runoff, according to results of an exclusive new Gray TV/Alabama Daily News Poll released Wednesday.

In the poll of 600 likely Alabama Republican primary voters conducted by Cygnal, 40% of voters say they will vote for the incumbent Ivey, with businessman Tim James 2nd pulling 18% of voter support, and former Ambassador Lindy Blanchard just behind James in 3rd with 15% support. Lew Burdette comes in 4th with 6%, and Dean Odle 5th with 4%.

Ivey’s support dropped 6 points from our last survey in March, while James and Blanchard each showed a slight increase. Alabama Daily News publisher Todd Stacy says that could be the result of a barrage of negative campaign ads.

“I will say you’ve had quite a few attack ads from Tim James and Lindy Blanchard, they’ve really been blanketing the airwaves, so maybe that’s had some impact because she’s not been hitting back,” Stacy surmises. “It’s not been like the Senate race where they’re going tit for tat, she’s only running her own positive ads.”

Also puzzling in these results is the gap, about 27 percentage points, between Ivey’s approval rating (67%), and her level of support in the primary ballot test (40%).

“I have heard about polls where she’s a lot higher, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this is her floor, and might be closer to 50 on election day,” says Stacy. “But based on this, it would be a runoff, which is really interesting.”

14% of these primary voters tell us they’re undecided in the gubernatorial primary. Ivey would need 50% +1 to avoid a runoff.

Further down the ballot, State Auditor Jim Zeigler leads the race for the GOP nomination for Secretary of State with 20% of the vote, followed by State Rep. Wes Allen with 14%, but 59% of voters are undecided in this race.

In the Alabama Supreme Court race, Greg Cook (29%) leads Deborah Jones (14%), with 56% of voters unsure who they’ll support with just 2 weeks to go until primary election day.

The Gray TV/ AL Daily News Poll conducted by Cygnal has a margin of error of 4%.

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