(Developing: Updated to reflect comment from Barnett with links about polling firm)
Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach has taken a commanding lead in the GOP gubernatorial primary over Gov. Jeff Colyer in a new poll released Saturday night.
The poll done by the Kobach campaign shows the secretary of state with a 9 percentage point lead over Colyer with a little more than a week before the Aug. 7 primary election.
The poll showed Kobach receiving 34 percent of the vote to 25 percent for Colyer, 11 percent for former state Sen. Jim Barnett of Emporia and 8 percent for Insurance Commissioner Ken Selzer. Teenager Tyler Ruzich and evangelist Patrick Kucera each received 1 percent.
There was still 20 percent undecided.
The poll by JMC Analytics and Polling, based in Baton Rouge, La., surveyed 500 people July 25 to July 27. Most of them were registered Republicans. Five percent of those polled were unaffiliated voters and 1 percent were Libertarian.
The poll did not survey anyone who said they didn’t plan to vote Aug. 7. The Kobach poll had a margin of error of 4.4 percentage points.
“Our lead in the poll reveals why the Colyer campaign has launched so many desperate, negative attacks against Kris Kobach,” said Kobach spokeswoman Danedri Herbert.
The Colyer campaign challenged the results.
It pointed out that JMC polled for Judge Roy Moore in the hotly contested Alabama U.S. Senate race and found the judge to be leading by 5 percentage points at a similar point in the race.
Moore narrowly lost to Democrat Doug Jones in the 2017 Alabama Senate race.
“They have quite a track record of providing losing candidates with bad polling,” spokesman Kendall Marr said.
Barnett also questioned the credibility of the poll since it came from the Kobach campaign. He’s skeptical of polling done by both campaigns in the race.
“Since this is from a campaign, one would have to suspect the results were obtained from a push poll,” Barnett said in email. “Colyer has been doing this, as well.
“Both camps are trying to change the narrative of the campaign, with push polls and press releases,” he said.
The Selzer campaign was not prepared to address the poll results late Saturday night.
The Kobach poll is very different from the one done by Remington Research Group, which showed Colyer with a 3-point lead in late June. The Remington poll surveyed 1,485 likely Republican primary election voters.
Remington is owned by Kansas City-based Axiom Strategies, which in 2017 formed a media group that has placed ad purchases for a dark money organization spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on Colyer’s behalf.
Selzer and Barnett fared better in the Kobach poll than the Remington survey. In the June Remington poll, Selzer was at 2 percent and Barnett was at 8 percent. Selzer rose to 8 in the Kobach poll and Barnett was at 11.
The Kobach poll showed the secretary of state performing best with voters ranging in age from 35 to 64. He received support from 42 percent of those polled in the 35-54 age bracket. He also got support from 38 percent of the 55-64 age bracket.
Colyer also did well in those age brackets but still trailed Kobach. Colyer received support from 27 percent of the 35-54 age group and 20 percent of the 55-64 bracket.
Barnett, the most moderate of all the GOP gubernatorial candidates, led the 18-34 bracket with 25 percent of those polled.
“Within the Republican electorate, Kobach has a fairly broad base of support, with plurality leads in all major media markets and among most age groups,” the pollster wrote.
“In summary, Kris Kobach has a lead in the primary race for governor due to a devoted base of support,” the pollster wrote.
