News On 6 Pollster Says Latest Survey Is 'Dire Warning' For Republicans

<p>With Oklahoma's primary election in June, new polling data exclusive to News on 6 shows the potential for some surprising results.</p>

Wednesday, May 23rd 2018, 10:47 pm

By: News On 6

News On 6 Pollster Says Latest Survey Is 'Dire Warning' For Republicans

With Oklahoma's primary election in June, new polling data exclusive to News On 6 shows the potential for some surprising results.

A scientific poll of more than 600 likely voters shows the current standings in the major races for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and Attorney General. It also drills down into voter discontent. and that's what our pollster says is the most interesting component of this year’s primary.

“I think Republicans need to be concerned because Mary Fallin is doing them no favors,” said Bill Shapard of SoonerPoll.com, and according to the poll that may be an understatement.

While 65 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion of President Trump, 69 percent have an unfavorable opinion of Governor Fallin and that includes 61 percent of Republicans.

“No doubt that’s going to have an impact, not only at the top of the ticket but all the way at the bottom of the ticket,” said Shapard. How big that impact will be isn't yet clear, but Shapard says it is clear that voters are generally unhappy right now with state government.

The survey shows that 65 percent of people feel Oklahoma is headed in the wrong direction, while 70 percent have an unfavorable opinion of the GOP-led Legislature. At the same time, the survey shows 53 percent of voters would pick a Republican over a Democrat for U.S. Congress, Shapard says that's significant.

"That shows you that there is somewhere around a 20 point spread between how they feel about Republicans at the national level and Republicans at the state level. This should be a dire warning for Republicans."

Shapard says if he were advising candidates, he would tell Democrats to spend more time talking about education funding, the teacher shortage, and four-day school weeks. While he would tell Republicans to find a way to distance themselves from Governor Fallin, and instead try to align themselves more with President Trump.

SoonerPoll is Oklahoma’s only independent, non-partisan pollster that performs political and issue-oriented polling for the state’s news media and various associations and interest groups in the state.

The scientific study was conducted May 15-23, 2018 with 622 likely Oklahoma voters selected at random statewide from a 5-frame of SoonerPoll's own online panel, Research Now's voter panel, cell phones, and landline telephones. For cell phone and landline telephones, voters are selected at random from SoonerPoll's voter database and matched with cell and landline phone numbers. Cell phone participants are collected using live interviewers and landline participants are collected using both live interviewer and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology. The sample was weighted by age, gender, political party and congressional district in order to reflect the Oklahoma likely voter population for a general election. The poll of Oklahoma likely voters, which was commissioned by News 9 and News On 6.

The sample reflects the traditional demographical profile of the Oklahoma likely voter with roughly half of the respondents identifying as conservative. The study has a Margin of Error (MoE) of ± 3.93 percent.