School Superintendent Hofmeister leads in general election re-match
School Superintendent Joy Hofmeister led both her democratic and independent opponent, according to the most recent statewide poll commissioned by News 9 and Newson6 in Tulsa.
CLICK HERE: for a complete topline and crosstab report
The race features a re-match from four years ago when Hofmeister first captured the seat in a general election against John Cox, the Peggs School District Superintendent.
So far this year, Hofmeister has won a primary and run-off election, having appeared on the ballot twice already, while went Cox unchallenged in the primary.
[QUESTION] If the November general election for State Superintendent of Public Instruction was today and you were standing in the voting booth right now, for whom would you vote? [READ IN ROTATED ORDER]
1. Joy Hofmeister, the Republican 50.6%
2. John Cox, the Democrat 31.3
3. Larry Huff, the Independent 9.3
4. Undecided/not sure [DNR] 8.9
Hofmeister led among Republicans with 74 percent, while Cox led among Democrats with 60.5 percent, but Hofmeister had a 21 point party crossover advantage, which was the highest recorded for any Republican in the statewide ballot poll. A party crossover vote is calculated by taking the opposing party's support for a particular candidate and subtracting from it any loss of support among the candidate's own party to their opponent.
Cox did lead among self-identified moderate voters, 42.2 percent to 36.1 percent, but this was the smallest of margins of any other Republican/Democrat match-up in the statewide poll.
Teacher pay increases and education funding have been big issues for Oklahomans over the last few years, having a negative impact on voters' perception of whether Oklahoma was going in the right or wrong direction.
Hofmeister led Cox among those voters who thought Oklahoma was going in the right direction, 62.1 to 24.5 percent and, interestingly, among those who thought Oklahoma was going in the wrong direction, 44.7 to 36.7 percent.
Hofmeister also led Cox, handsomely in some cases, among voters in the "parenting" ages of 25-54, and among the "grandparenting" ages of 55 plus.
Hofmeister also led Cox in every congressional district and among urban/suburban and rural voters.
About the Poll
SoonerPoll.com, Oklahoma’s public opinion pollster, conducted the poll of Oklahoma likely voters, which was commissioned by News9 and Newson6.
The scientific study was conducted September 5-10, 2018 with 407 likely voters selected at random statewide 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, political party, and congressional district in order to reflect the Oklahoma likely voter population.
The sample reflects the traditional demographical profile of the Oklahoma likely voter with roughly half of respondents identifying as conservative. The study has a Margin of Error (MoE) of ±4.86 percent.
