Tolbert: GOP Poll Shows Cotton Up By Two

You got a poll; I got a poll, they got a poll, all God’s children got a poll.

They come in all shapes and forms and everyone seems to have a different way of saying basically the same thing – the U.S. Senate race between Mark Pryor and Tom Cotton is close.

Bill Vickery had a good take on the multitude of polls in his Sync column last week comparing some of the pollsters to Professor Harold Hill of “The Music Man.”

But regardless, there is yet another one out today showing a two-point lead for Tom Cotton over Mark Pryor with Cotton at 42% and Pryor at 40%.  The poll was done by Cotton’s pollster OnMessage, Inc. They surveyed 600 likely voters between May 6-8.

So why the different result from an NBC Marist poll released just yesterday showing Pryor with an 11-point lead with Pryor at 51% and Cotton at 40%?

For starters, the two polls are apples and oranges.  First, the Marist poll surveyed registered voters while the OnMessage poll surveyed likely voters. In addition, the partisan make-up of the polls is quite different.  Respondents in Marist poll identified themselves 30% Democrat, 23% Republican, and 46% Independent. The OnMessage poll showed Republicans and Democrats evenly split at 36% each and Independents at 26%.

Is the NBC poll way off?  I am not going to pretend to be smart enough to answer that question, but I do prefer polling that screens for likely voters as our Talk Business/Hendrix College polls all do.  You will recall that our poll showed the race basically a dead heat with Pryor up 3 at 45.5% to Cotton’s 42.5%.

Seems about right.

I will also note here that the subplots on all these polls continue to show positive news for Asa Hutchinson in the governor’s race.  The same Marist poll that shows Pryor up 11, shows Asa up 7 with Asa at 49% and Ross at 42%.  That’s good news for Asa and bad news for Ross.  It is a reversal of most thinking from just a few months ago.

These polls are all interesting, but the long and short of all this is that the race still remains tight and, in my opinion, Cotton has a excellent opportunity as the challenger to go after the undecided voters.