By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Thursday, Cygnal released polling numbers indicating that former Alabama State Senator and former head of the state’s two year college system, Bradly Byrne from Montrose, is leading the field and is almost certainly going to be in the Republican Party runoff. However, the identity of his runoff opponent is far from certain.
Cygnal managing partner Brent Buchanon made the results of the flash poll public on Facebook.
Bryne leads the field with 34% support. Sen. Byrne is followed by Alabama State Representative Chad Fincher at 14.9%, Dean Young at 12.1%, Quin Hillyer at 9.1% and Wells Griffith is at 8.3%.
Cygnal is predicting that based on these figures, “Byrne is a ‘shoo-in’ to make the runoff.”
With a 14.9% showing Fincher has the greatest likelihood of being in the runoff with Byrne, but Young, Hillyer, and Griffith could also potentially be in the runoff depending on which campaign does the best job of getting out their voters and which way the 17.5% who report that they are undecided break on Tuesday.
Daniel Dyas is polling at just 2%, Jessica James at just .7%, Sharon Powe at 1.1%, and David “Thunder” Thornton at just .3%.
The Cygnal poll asked voters who their second choice would be and voters of those candidates who do not make it to a potential runoff strongly indicate they would vote for Sen. Byrne in a runoff. 27.2% name Byrne as their second choice, followed by Fincher at 15.2%, Griffith at 10,5%, Hillyer at 9.8%, Young at 8.7%, James at 2.3%, Powe at 1%, and Thornton with .2%.
Byrne is leading in Mobile County with 31.3% and in Baldwin County with 42.3%. In other counties he is polling at just 25.1%, but that is still more than the other candidates.
The Cygnal poll asked voters who their second choice would be and voters of those candidates who do not make it to a potential runoff strongly indicate they would vote for Sen. Byrne in a runoff. 27.2% name Byrne as their second choice, followed by Fincher at 15.2%, Griffith at 10,5%, Hillyer at 9.8%, Young at 8.7%, James at 2.3%, Powe at 1%, and Thornton with .2%.
84.2% of the likely Republican voters responded that the direction of the country is either definitely wrong (63.4%) or somewhat wrong (20.8%). 721 voters were sampled and the margin of error is just 3.6%.
On Tuesday, Republican voters will decide between Quin Hillyer, Dean Young, Bradley Byrne, Wells Griffith, Jessica James, Daniel Dyas, David Thornton, and Sharon Powe. Due to the numbers in the Republican primary most political observers expect that there will likely be a Republican runoff.
The ultimate winner of the Republican Primary will face either Burton Leflore or Lula Albert Kaigler, who face each other Tuesday in the Democratic Party Primary. Independent James Hall is still trying to collect the 5,934 First Congressional District voter signatures he needs in order to get on the ballot. The First Congressional District has been in Republican hands since 1965.
Congressional District One became vacant when Representative Jo Bonner (R) retired to take a position with the University of Alabama System. The winner of the fall special election will have to run again in next year’s election.
Cygnal describes itself as a full service campaign and communications firm.
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