FactFinder 12 Scientific Survey: Moran & Tiahrt Battle for Votes

August 10, 2009

Geography Surveyed: Kansas
Data Collected: 08/07/2009 - 08/09/2009
Release Date: 08/10/2009 11:55 ET
Sponsors: KCTV-TV Kansas City, KWCH-TV Wichita

One Year From KS GOP Senate Primary, Moran and Tiahrt Face An Undecided Electorate: Jerry Moran and Todd Tiahrt continue to battle for votes in the race for the GOP nomination to fill Sam Brownback's open US Senate seat, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted for KWCH-TV Wichita and KCTV-TV Kansas City. Today, likely Republican Primary voters split into three groups. Moran gets 38%. Tiahrt 32%. 30% are undecided.

Tiahrt, US Representative for Kansas' 4th Congressional District, located toward the southeastern part of the state, leads by 3:1 in Southeastern Kansas. Moran, who represents Kansas' 1st Congressional District, which takes up most of the western two-thirds of the state, leads 6:1 in that part of the state. In the northeastern portion of the state, however, home to nearly half the state's population, almost half of likely voters are today undecided.

Kansas political parties decide before each primary whether the primary will be open to voters who are not affiliated with any political party; SurveyUSA includes those unaffiliated voters here, who make up 13% of the electorate in this poll, and breaks out their results in a crosstab:

Among Republicans, Moran leads by 4 points, with 28% of voters undecided.
Among unaffiliated voters, Moran leads by 11 points, with 47% of voters undecided.

Moran has never trailed in three separate SurveyUSA polls; he led by 4 points in April, by 2 in June, and by 6 today. But: one key difference between previous SurveyUSA polls and this poll -- previous polls began with a question about a Republican Governor's Primary. But the KS GOP Governor's Primary is no longer contested, and today's release does not include a question about it.

Filtering: SurveyUSA interviewed 1,500 Kansas adults 08/07/09 through 08/09/09. Of them, 1,341 were registered to vote. Of the registered voters, 471 were determined by SurveyUSA to be likely voters in the August 2010 Republican Primary.

1) Asked of 471 likely GOP primary voters - Margin of Sampling Error for this question = ÃƒÆ’Ã‚Æ’Ãƒâ€šÃ‚â€šÃƒÆ’Ã‚â€šÃƒâ€šÃ‚Â± 4.6%

If the Republican Primary for United States Senate were today, who would you vote for? (candidate names rotated) Jerry Moran? or Todd Tiahrt?

38% - Moran
32% - Tiahrt
30% - Undecided

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