Kobach vs. Bollier: Competing polls test potential Senate race matchup in Kansas
After a poll showed Republican Kris Kobach in a dead heat with Democrat Barbara Bollier in a potential showdown for Kansas’ open Senate seat, Kobach has released his own poll in which he’s ahead by roughly 9 points.
SMART, a union representing transportation workers, released a poll Monday showing Bollier and Kobach deadlocked at 43 percent support in a general election matchup for retiring Republican Sen. Pat Roberts’ U.S. Senate seat.
The survey of 600 Kansas adults had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points and a 95 percent confidence rate. The poll, which was conducted by Minnesota-based DFM Research from Jan. 30 to Feb. 6, did not screen for likely voters.
The poll showed that relatively few respondents knew Bollier’s name, with 69 percent of respondents saying they had never heard of the Johnson County state senator. Of the respondents who knew Bollier’s name, 13 percent had a favorable view compared to 7 percent with an unfavorable view. The rest were neutral.
A plurality of 49 percent of respondents had an unfavorable view of Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state and 2018 GOP nominee for governor, compared to 34 percent with a favorable view. Only 10 percent had never heard of Kobach, while the rest were neutral.
Days later, Kobach’s campaign released the results its own survey of likely voters, which showed Kobach leading Bollier 47 percent to 37.7 percent in a general election matchup.
In a phone call, Kobach said the result should dispel the notion that his candidacy puts the Kansas Senate seat at risk after eight decades of GOP dominance.
“I would also say that this poll really destroys the narrative that the Washington establishment were pushing that somehow if you have Kobach, the conservative, as a nominee, the seat would be lost,” Kobach said.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee took the unusual step of condemning Kobach’s campaign the day he announced, citing his loss in the 2018 race for governor as a reason he should not be the party’s nominee for Senate.
Kobach said the poll shows him winning the general election race by a comparable margin to the 2014 race, when Roberts won by 11 percentage points against independent Greg Orman after Roberts’ campaign and GOP-aligned groups spent a combined $17 million to hold the seat.
“Most people regard the Roberts victory in 2014 as a comfortable one,” Kobach said.
However, Kobach’s poll, conducted by Virginia-based McLaughlin & Associates between February 12 and 13, has a relatively high margin of error of plus or minus 5.6 percentage points because of the small sample size with a 95 percent level of confidence.
Patrick Miller, a political scientist at the University of Kansas who studies polling, said in an email that based on the margin of error Kobach’s support could be as low as 41.4 percent and Bollier’s could be as high as 43.3 percent.
“So technically, given the overlap of the MOE, Kobach doesn’t necessarily have a real lead in this poll. Some strict polling types would insist on calling this a statistical tie,” Miller said in an email.
Miller said the two polls don’t actually contradict each other because in neither case did a candidate have a lead outside the margin of error.
Bollier used the poll that showed her and Kobach tied to fund-raise this week, tweeting out a photo of the results with a link to her campaign contribution page.
“A new poll just came out showing our race TIED. Together, we can flip this seat, end Mitch McConnell’s majority and give Kansans a voice of reason in the Senate. Contribute now,” Bollier said on Twitter.
Ashley All, Bollier’s campaign spokeswoman, said in an email that Bollier “clearly has the momentum in this close race” when asked about the competing polls.
Kobach said the poll paid for by SMART should not be taken seriously because it did not include a screen for likely voters and its primary purpose was to test support for expanding rail service in Kansas.
“It’s using the wrong tool to poll a political race,” he said.
Neither poll has tested Bollier against other Republican candidates. In addition to Kobach, U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall and Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle are seeking the GOP nomination among other candidates.
Marshall campaign spokesman Eric Pahls said in a text message that the “fact that Kobach— after being on statewide ballots for a decade—is bragging about polling below 50% in a state where Republicans outnumber Democrats 2:1, and that Trump won by more than 20% is laughable.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell met with Marshall to discuss the race last month, but has yet to meet with Kobach. Despite his criticism of national Republicans, Kobach said he would welcome a meeting with McConnell.
Roberts, the retiring incumbent senator, this week called Kobach the frontrunner to win the Republican nomination because of his strong base but also said he had not raised enough money for the race.
Marshall, a congressman who represents western Kansas, currently has $1.9 million cash on hand in his campaign account compared to Kobach’s $190,000, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission last month.
Of the major candidates in the race, Kobach is the only one who is receiving the bulk of his funding from out of state with 59.8 percent of his fundraising coming from donors outside of Kansas.
“I think it’s because of my reputation on fighting illegal immigration and trying to stop voter fraud,” Kobach said when asked about his out-of-state contributions.
This story was originally published February 14, 2020 at 5:03 PM with the headline "Kobach vs. Bollier: Competing polls test potential Senate race matchup in Kansas."
