Russell leads by 10 points in 5th Congressional District race

According to the most recent SoonerPoll, Congressman Steve Russell led Kendra Horn, the Democrat challenger, by ten points in a congressional race that many have talked about as a potential pick-up for the Democrats.

Of all of the Oklahoma congressional races polled, this one was the closest but the poll's internal metrics show this will be an extremely hard seat for the Democrats to win this year. Since 2006, a Republican running for the seat has never gotten below 57 percent of the vote, although the lowest amount was set by Russell in 2016.

CLICK HERE: for the complete topline and crosstab report

Dissatisfaction with President Trump, a key vote driver in congressional vote decisions, is low in the 5th congressional district compared to other parts of the country.  While 43.4 percent are unfavorable of the president, 50.2 percent do have a favorable opinion of him.

[QUESTION] If the November general election for UNITED STATES CONGRESS were TODAY and you were standing in the voting booth right now and had to make a choice, for whom would you vote?

1. Steve Russell, the Republican 47.2%
2. Kendra Horn, the Democrat 37.2
3. Don't know/Refused [DNR] 15.6

Among Republicans, 83.5 percent are supporting Russell, as well as 9.4 percent of Democrats.  While Russell is losing 4.7 percent of Republicans to Horn, he has a small crossover vote advantage of 4.7 percent. This was smallest crossover vote advantage in the poll for any of the Republican incumbents running for re-election in Oklahoma.

Horn did lead Russell among self-identified moderate voters, 49.9 to 36.6 percent for Russell.  If fact, every Democratic challenger led among moderate voters in the other Oklahoma congressional races and, while it is not having a significant impact on the election of the Republicans in those races, it might in the 5th congressional district where one-in-three voters identify as moderates -- the highest percent within all of the districts.

Russell led among men voters, 50.4 to 38.1 percent, and among women voters but by a slightly smaller margin, 44.6 to 36.4 percent for Horn.

Russell performed significantly better among those that identify as evangelical, 69.6 to 17.5 percent for Horn. Just under half of voters in the district are evangelical. Roughly half of the electorate also attends church weekly or more and these voters supported Russell 56 percent to 31 percent for Horn.

About the Poll

SoonerPoll.com, Oklahoma’s public opinion pollster, conducted the poll of Oklahoma likely voters in the 5th congressional district, and was commissioned by News9 and Newson6.

The scientific study was conducted September 15-25, 2018 with 303 likely voters selected at random from a tri-frame of SoonerPoll's own online panel, cell phones and landline telephones. For cell phone and landline telephones, voters are selected at random from SoonerPoll's voter database and matched with cell and landline phone numbers.  Cell phone participants are collected using live interviewers and landline participants are collected using both live interviewer and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technology. The sample was weighted by age, gender and political party in order to reflect the Oklahoma likely voter population in the 5th congressional district.

The study has a Margin of Error (MoE) of ±5.63 percent.