A five-point poll lead and $1.2 million raised has the Alabama attorney general’s race “breaking my way,” Democrat state Rep. Joe Hubbard is telling voters in his latest fundraising appeal.
A closer look at Hubbard’s numbers should make incumbent Republican Luther Strange rest easier.
Hubbard has no lead in any non-partisan poll because none have so far been made public. A call I made to determine where his poll came from has not been returned.
The results may have come from an internal poll taken by the Hubbard campaign. The Republican Attorneys General Association has done its own internal polling showing Strange ahead by 15 percentage points, 48-33, according to numbers provided exclusively to Unnaturally Political.
Then there is a matter of the $1.2 million he has raised. $1 million, or 83 percent of it donated has come from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. According to its website, the tribe manages three gaming facilities in Alabama.
This is the same Creek Indian tribe Strange has sued for what he says operating electronic bingo machines illegally, which may explain their support of Hubbard the Montgomery Advertiser reports.
“This is unprecedented in Alabama politics with one donor attempting to buy a statewide office,” Mike Lewis communications director for the Strange campaign told me in an email statement. “Joe Hubbard has almost no support from ordinary citizens. In contrast, Attorney General Strange has raised over $2.4 million with individual contributors the largest category of donors.”
“The partisan tilt of Alabama and the crumbling state of the Democratic party are all working in Strange’s favor,” Brendan Kirby, political reporter for AL.com, explained in a phone interview. “Of the three major statewide races, governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general, Republicans are expected to hold on.”