After months of polls showing Bill Eigel in a distant third place in the GOP primary for Missouri governor, a new survey suggests he may be within striking distance of the frontrunners.
And the poll giving Eigel a boost was paid for by one of his campaign rivals, though it doesn’t appear to be intended for public consumption.
American Dream PAC, the political action committee supporting Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe, commissioned the June poll but has not released it to the public. The Independent found it and the accompanying analysis on an obscure page of the PACs website last week before it was taken down.
Similar to a series of polls released in recent weeks, the American Dream PAC survey found a dead heat between Kehoe and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft for the lead in the GOP primary.
But it is the first poll suggesting Eigel, a Republican state senator, may be gaining ground.
The poll found Kehoe and Ashcroft tied at 27%, with Eigel in third place with 16%. Roughly a quarter of respondents were undecided.
Other recent polls put Eigel in single digits.
“If Eigel is able to attract additional resources, this could become a true three-way contest,” according to analysis of the June survey provided to American Dream PAC by its pollster, American Viewpoint.
The poll was conducted in early June, before Eigel’s campaign took in $415,000 in donations last week from trial attorneys and before either Ashcroft or Eigel were on the air with TV ads.
Eigel’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Kehoe’s campaign did not address questions about Eigel’s poll numbers.
But Jason Cabel Roe, Ashcroft’s spokesman, said he’s skeptical Eigel could be in double-digits before his campaign had launched any TV ads.
“There have been about 15 public polls released in the last year, and 13 of them have had Eigel somewhere between 4-8 points,” Roe said. “He just hasn’t done anything to move numbers, so I don’t see how he could’ve doubled his vote share without spending money.”
The 800 people who participated in the survey were reached by cell phone, landline and text message, with a margin of error of 3.5%. According to the most recent campaign disclosures, American Viewpoint in January was paid $79,500 by American Dream PAC and $64,300 by Kehoe’s campaign.
In addition to acting as a possible barometer for the race, the polling documents also shed some light on Kehoe’s potential strategy in the campaign’s final weeks.
Ashcroft has led the GOP primary from the start, benefitting from two terms as secretary of state and a last name with a long history in Missouri politics. His dad, John Ashcroft, served as state auditor, state attorney general, governor, U.S. Senator and U.S. attorney general.
Kehoe has managed to erase Ashcroft’s lead in recent months because his campaign has used its massive fundraising advantage to monopolize TV airwaves, the polling firm concluded in its analysis.
Ashcroft and Eigel only recently launched their first TV ads
“Kehoe now leads in the two markets where there has been advertising,” the analysis concluded, later adding: “Kehoe’s reach is fairly consistent across groups, and geographically it lines up with advertising.”
Outside of the two markets where Kehoe’s ads have been airing — St. Louis and Springfield — the race remains a function of name ID.
Kehoe leads in mid-Missouri, where he previously served as a state senator, and Ashcroft has an advantage in Kansas City and smaller markets. This means, the polling firm concluded, that Kehoe’s campaign needs to dedicate resources to those markets where he trails Ashcroft.
“This race is more about geography at this point than any one key demographic group,” the polling firm concluded.
Kehoe is strongest with “more centrist and traditional GOP voters,” the analysis found, while Ashcroft leads with “very conservative and Trump movement voters.”
Eigel, meanwhile, “cannot be ignored as a factor in this race,” the polling firm concluded, with “ideology and Trump movement affiliation” as the driving factor on his vote share.
Of the quarter of poll respondents who were undecided, liberal and moderate primary voters are more likely to be undecided than conservatives.
Illegal immigration and border security are the top issues in the race, the polling firm found, particularly among very conservative primary voters. Ashcroft leads with those citing border security, while Kehoe is stronger among those focused on the economy.
For months, American Dream PAC has hammered Ashcroft in TV ads over his support of legislation to reduce Missouri’s current 1% cap on foreign-owned agricultural land to 0.5%, arguing he should have supported a complete ban.
Ashcroft’s campaign has noted that foreign ownership of Missouri farmland was banned until 2013, when the legislature enacted the 1% cap. Kehoe voted in favor of that legislation while serving in the state Senate, and it opened the door for a Chinese company to purchase Smithfield Foods and its 40,000 acres of Missouri farmland.
While the polling firm concluded that American Dream’s China ads have been effective, it suggests there could be diminishing returns in markets where they’ve been on the air for months. So the campaign should consider switching to ads focused on critical race theory.
Gabby Picard, spokeswoman for Kehoe’s campaign, said the poll shows that Ashcroft’s once commanding lead in the GOP primary “has evaporated into thin air.” Kehoe, she said, has the momentum.
“Missourians are not buying the charade from Bill Eigel and Jay Ashcroft,” she said, “and the manure their campaigns have been shoveling.”
Roe, the spokesman for Ashcroft’s campaign, said it isn’t surprising that the race has tightened since Kehoe has spent millions of dollars and had the TV airwaves to himself for months.
“Frankly,” Roe said, “given the amount spent, he should be in much better shape than he is.”
