News9 Exclusive Poll: Horn leads Bice by a hair, while internal poll numbers give both camps some hope

In 2018, this congressional race was decided by one-half of one percent and 2020 looks like it will be no different.

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Democratic Congresswoman Kendra Horn leads Republican State Senator Stephanie Bice by just 1.8 percentage points in a poll of 943 likely voting participants, the largest of any polls SoonerPoll has ever done in this congressional district.

Conventional wisdom is that the undecideds typically break for the challenger which bodes well for Bice who could win by the slimmest of margins, but some other internal numbers make a better case for Horn.

Trump and Biden are tied at 47 a piece among 5th congressional district likely voters and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abby Broyles is edging out the Republican incumbent, U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe, by 1.4 percentage points.

Horn is also getting 15 percent of the Republican vote while losing 9.2 percent of Democrats to Bice, meaning she has a net positive 5.8-point crossover vote advantage in a district that Republicans lead Democrats by 11.5 points, 49.9 percent to 38.4 percent.

Independents also heavily favor Horn 69.8 percent to just 19.6 percent for Bice. Just over ten percent are undecided and if they break proportionally the advantage goes to Horn.

[QUESTION] If the upcoming November GENERAL election for your U.S. House seat was held today, and you were standing in the voting booth right now and had to make a choice, for whom would you vote?

1. Kendra Horn, the Democrat: 48.8%
2. Stephanie Bice, the Republican: 47.0%
3. Undecided: 4.2%

In the primary election, Horn led among absentee voters with more than twenty thousand while the entire Republican primary field, combined, only had slightly more than ten thousand, meaning Horn goes into election day with roughly a ten thousand vote advantage before the polls even open.  Other analysis shows Democratic groups in Oklahoma County have been very active signing up their base with absentee voting long before the pandemic hit earlier this year.

This year, nearly a third of all 5th district likely voters report they will be voting by absentee, which is 13 points higher than the statewide percent. Among Democrats, those reporting to be voting by absentee is nearly forty percent in the 5th district.  Republicans trail with 25.9 percent but this is impressive considering only 13 percent of Republicans will be voting absentee statewide.

Bice is doing better with male likely voters than in previous polling which is a good sign for her, but she only leads with three percentage points, 49.5 percent to 46.5 percent for Horn.  Men voters typically are more conservative and favor Republican candidates with pocketbook issues.

Horn is leading with women likely voters, 50.6 percent to 44.9 percent, which is typical for Democratic candidates, but the lead is nearly six percentage points.

Horn is performing extremely well with young voters with 68.9 percent among those under the age of 34 to Bice's 26.3 percent. This age subset makes up only ten percent of the electorate. But, Bice leads among the largest block of voters, those over the age of 50 by eight percentage points. Those over the age of 50 make up 63 percent of the electorate.

Moderate voters, who make up slight more than one-fifth of the electorate, favor Horn 78 percent to 19 percent for Bice.

About the Poll

SoonerPoll.com, Oklahoma’s public opinion pollster, conducted the poll of Oklahoma likely voters for a general election.  The poll was commissioned by News9 in Oklahoma City and Newson6 in Tulsa.

The scientific study was conducted October 15-20, 2020 with 5466 likely voters selected at random statewide from a dual-frame of cell phones and landline telephones. Cell phone participants were texted a link to conduct the poll on their phones and landline participants were collected using IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology. The sample was weighted by political party, age, and congressional district in order to reflect the Oklahoma likely voter population. The weighting was conducted using a 'layered technique.'  The study has a Margin of Error (MoE) of ±1.32 percent.

A complete description of the methodology can be found here.  A beta version of the Weighting Table Report can be viewed here.