With less than a month to go before the Aug. 15 Alabama GOP Senate primary, we finally have a poll. Cygnal, on behalf of unnamed businesses and associations, gives appointed Sen. Luther Strange the lead with 33 percent. Roy Moore, the former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, leads Rep, Mo Brooks 26-16 for second. In the likely event that no one takes a majority, there will be a runoff in September.
This is the first and only poll we've ever seen here, so we don't have anything to compare it to. However, Strange and his allies at the Senate Leadership Fund, a well-funded super PAC close to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, have been aggressively spending here, while Brooks and Moore have little outside support, so it makes sense if Strange is ahead.
Strange and friends have been training their fire on Brooks while so far ignoring Moore, who has a loyal base with social conservatives but little money. Moore himself is up with his first TV commercial, which is pretty unexciting stuff. The narrator recounts Moore's service in Vietnam and extols him for having "fought for the sanctity of marriage." The camera shows a heterosexual couple being married by a minister, but oddly, the shot cuts everyone off below the neck. It's a strange directorial choice, unless Moore is actually running on a pro-guillotine platform.
The narrator then pledges that Moore will "stand with President Trump against the weak-kneaded Republican establishment." The rest of the ad features a bunch of conservative talking points. There's no word on the size of the buy, though Moore had just $261,000 in the bank at the end of June.