US Senator Roger Wicker today released a commissioned poll from Cygnal conducted in mid-December that tries to determine the state of his re-election campaign among Republican voters. As you might guess (by the fact that he’s releasing it), the numbers are pretty favorable.
Cygnal polled the fav/unfav of President Trump, Wicker, State Sen. Chris McDaniel and disgraced former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who has actively pushed McDaniel to challenge Wicker.
The most recent Mason Dixon poll had Trump at 86% job approval among Republicans and Wicker at 70%. So these numbers generally track that polling.
It would seem that Wicker’s team now clearly expects McDaniel to jump in the race as they’re releasing polling of him now. That’s about as tacit a recognition of a non-announced candidate as you’re going to get from an incumbent. McDaniel has delayed his initial indications on a decision to enter the race by about 60 days. With a qualifying deadline in March, one would think that McDaniel wouldn’t wait much longer if in fact he was going to announce.
The other interesting thing the survey polled was the relative strength of endorsements. President Trump still carries a lot of influence for Mississippi Republicans and his endorsement makes it 74% more likely that a Mississippi Republican will vote for that candidate. Trump pledged his support to Wicker in October of 2017. Wicker remains at the top of the US Senate on his “Trump Score” at 96.5%. Steve Bannon only nominally impacts Mississippi Republicans and this polling was done before the recent public betrayal of the President by Steve Bannon.
The entirety of the polling memo is below.
Roger Wicker Polling Memo 010918 #mssen by yallpolitics on Scribd
