(Updated to include United Kansas candidate Scott Morgan, who was not included in the poll results)
Democratic secretary of state candidate Jennifer Day on Wednesday released an internal poll showing the race with Republican state Rep. Pat Proctor within the margin of error.
The poll by Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling of Raleigh, North Carolina, showed Proctor leading the race with 39% of the vote followed by Day with 37% of the vote.
The undecideds were 24%.
The poll did not include Scott Morgan, chief counsel to former Republican Gov. Mike Hayden who is running as the third candidate in the race under the United Kansas party label.
The campaign said the poll was done Aug. 31 through Sept.1 with a mix of landline calls and text messages to 542 likely Kansas voters.
The margin of error was 4.2%
The poll surveyed Kansas voters from all political parties, including 50% identifying as Republican, 29% as Democratic, and 21% as Independent.
Additionally, 56% of those polled reported voting for Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.
The poll found that once hearing Day’s biography, 44% said they would be likely to vote for her.
The poll found that after hearing what critics say about Proctor, 47% of those surveyed had “serious concerns” with him.
The questions asked about Day’s background and what critics thought about Proctor were not made available.
“This poll confirms what we’ve been seeing everywhere we go: Kansans are not buying into Pat Proctor’s scare tactics,” Day said in a statement.
“They know that our elections in Kansas are safe and secure, and voters are looking for a secretary of state who will protect the integrity of our elections,” she said.
“We’re in a competitive race, and we’re building the broad coalition we need to win in November. There is a lot of work ahead, but we have the momentum and we’re ready for it.”
Proctor has served in the House as chair of the elections committee, where he led efforts to end the three-day grace period for advance mail ballots to arrive at election offices.
The bill repealing the law was vetoed by the governor, but the Legislature overrode the veto. A Douglas County district judge has issued an injunction allowing the grace period to temporarily remain in place.
Proctor also backed a constitutional amendment to ensure noncitizens could not vote, although critics said it wasn’t necessary. Kansans will vote on the amendment in November.
He led passage of another measure to keep noncitizens off the voter rolls by requiring the secretary of state to match names on voter rolls with a list of noncitizens who have driver’s licenses.
In responding to the poll results, Proctor pounded home a message he’s been using during the campaign, referring to comments she made last year at a Douglas County forum where she discussed the prosecution of the mayor of the small town of Coldwater with election fraud.
Jose Ceballos – a legal permanent resident of the United States who is a citizen of Mexico – was charged with three counts of voting without being qualified and three counts of election perjury.
He pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of disorderly election conduct. Ceballos was Ceballos was ordered to turn himself in to Immigration and Customs Enforcement after admitting he voted without being a citizen.
He said he thought his green card allowed him to vote.
In that discussion about Ceballos, Day talked about how she thought the mayor was confused about whether he could vote and then moved on to address how some local governments in other parts of the country allow noncitizens to vote.
“We need to look into how we properly educate people about the difference between being a permanent legal resident and what a citizen is and how that voting works,” she said of the Ceballos case at a forum that was recorded.
“There are some places in the United States, in Washington D.C., I think there are spots in California, where you can vote as an immigrant who is not a citizen in their municipal elections, their local municipal elections. That is not the case in Kansas, unfortunately.”
Proctor has used that last clause against Day on social media and at a recent Kansas Chamber event, saying she wants noncitizens to vote in Kansas. He suggested that maybe pollsters didn’t provide that information to those surveyed.
“I’ll bet her ‘informed ballot’ didn’t include the fact that, on Oct. 18, she told a whole room of Douglas County Democrats that she thinks it’s ‘unfortunate’ that non-citizens can’t vote in Kansas elections,” he said.
“If Jennifer Day ever left Johnson and Douglas County and talked to Kansans in the rest of the state, she’d know that her radical ideas don’t fly outside her Blue bubble,” he said.
Day said she does not support allowing anyone in the country illegally to vote.
“It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in Kansas, and anyone who does so should be held accountable,” Day said in a statement.
“I support upholding the U.S. and Kansas Constitutions, and of course the law should be fully and consistently enforced,” she said.
“To imply that my knowledge of other states’ laws means I support breaking the law here in Kansas is quite the inaccurate assumption.”
Day’s campaign clarified her use of the word “unfortunately” in the video.
The campaign said she was referring to the Coldwater mayor case as an “unfortunate” event that should have been prevented.
The campaign said she was not expressing regret that noncitizen voting is illegal in Kansas, nor was she suggesting that Kansas should permit it.
