Cotton takes lead over Shoffner in new Senate poll

Sen. Tom Cotton (D-Little Rock) holds a nine-point lead over challenger Hallie Shoffner (D-Little Rock) in the race for U.S. Senate, according to a new poll released Thursday evening by Talk Business & Politics.

The poll, which surveyed 709 likely voters via telephone and text message, showed Cotton with 50% and Shoffner with 41%. Libertarian Jeff Wadlin of Bentonville finished a distant third with 4.5%, while another 4.5% of voters remain undecided. The poll has a margin of error of +/- 5%.

Cotton’s nine-point lead likely comes as a surprise to some, given earlier polling in the race. An internal poll from the Shoffner camp in early August showed her trailing Cotton 46-43, within the margin of error, and a Talk Business & Politics poll later that same month had Shoffner leading the senator 47.4% to 44%, also within the margin of error.

Roby Brock, editor-in-chief of Talk Business & Politics, cautions that there is still time for the candidates to gain or lose support before Election Day.

“Since our [previous] poll results were released in August, we have seen a barrage of millions of dollars of ads spent in opposition to Shoffner and in support of Cotton. Clearly, this has had some impact in the numbers,” said Brock. “Obviously, this race is not to the finish line and there are just under three weeks to go. It has been a competitive race and there is certainly time for more movement. We’ll see how the candidates’ campaigns respond and how that affects the final outcome.”

Brock’s point about money is well taken. Cotton’s has outspent Shoffner by a 65-to-1 margin in this race. That edge is not all due to Cotton’s own fundraising either, as he has also benefited from outside spending by super PACs and other Republican groups flush with cash thanks to outsized spending by Elon Musk.

Democratic politico Jay Barth, who cautioned at a recent Arkansas Times Lunch Lecture that Shoffner might have a hard time winning this race, provided some analysis to Talk Business & Politics that helps to explain Cotton’s surge in the poll:

Although evaluations of Donald Trump’s performance in office remains a defining force in determining voting for the US Senate, Cotton has clawed back some of those voters who “somewhat” disapprove of Trump. That group is now fairly even in their planned votes for US Senate. While he remains behind with Independents, he has closed the gap slightly with that group and has gained additional support with GOP identifiers since our August survey. Cotton also continues to do well with the oldest subgroups of voters and is running surprisingly well among Black voters; in this survey, Cotton is gaining slightly more than one in four Black voters. Finally, Cotton has closed the gender gap in the race with gender surprisingly disappearing as a factor in the race. Of course, these are small sample sizes of demographic subgroups, but they are worth watching in the stretch run of the campaign.