Cook: New Poll Shows Senate and Governor Races Essentially Tied

Public Policy Polling, a Democratic-leaning polling group, released numbers today of an automated poll they conducted on Arkansas’s hotly contested Senate and Governor’s races.

Their results show both races to be essentially tied.

U.S. Senate Race
Senator Mark Pryor = 44%
Congressman Tom Cotton = 44%

Governor’s Race
Asa Hutchinson = 44%
Mike Ross = 43%

PPP polled 1,000 Arkansans on December 13-15 and the poll was conducted for Americans United for Change, a progressive lobbying and political organization. You can view the results here as first reported by the Arkansas Times.

Cotton and Hutchinson lead their rivals among men and independent voters. Pryor and Ross lead among women and voters 65 and over.

Ross and Pryor lead among voters aged 18-29, while Hutchinson leads Ross among voters 30-64. Pryor and Cotton are literally tied at 44% for voters aged 30-45, while Cotton leads Pryor in voters aged 46-64.

As of yet, neither Democrat has the full support of African-American voters. Pryor gets 73% and Ross gets 60% time among this demographic.

However, both candidates are likely to get between 85-90% support of this traditional demographic base by Election Day, which means both candidates, especially Ross, has significant room to rise in the polls. High turnout in the African-American community is critical for both of these candidates.

The numbers for the Governor’s race hew closely to Ross’s internal poll released to Cook’s Outlook last month which had Hutchinson leading Ross by two points, 46% to 44%.

Members of the Republic Party will no doubt disregard this poll since it was conducted by a Democratic-leaning outfit. No matter, because in poll after poll, both public and private, one trend-line remains consistent – both of these races are complete toss-ups.

Pryor and Ross are holding their own in a national political environment where, right now, almost nothing is going right for Democrats and they’re in a state where Republicans have risen to power and the Democratic President’s poll numbers are below ridiculously low.

The only prediction I’ll make for either race is that they’ll likely remain very close all the way up to Election Day.