Discredited ‘Online Consumer Survey’ of Alabama Senate Race Released

The methodology of an “online Google Consumer Survey of Alabama residents,” conducted by a firm called CB Polling, that purports in a tweet that the race between Senator Luther Strange (R-AL) and Judge Roy Moore in next week’s September 26 Alabama U.S. Senate runoff election is a “Dead heat” collapses under scrutiny.

Only 188 likely Republican voters were included among the respondents in the survey, at least from the documentation provided by CB Polling (only one day, September 17, was cited in the documentation), which places the margin of error somewhere in the double digits, rendering the results virtually meaningless.

Of those 188 likely Republican voters, 100, or 53.2 percent, indicated they would vote for Judge Moore, while 88, or 46.8 percent, said they would vote for Strange.

But that is not how CB Polling reported the results:

CB Polling polled 440 Alabama residents between September 17th and September 19th, 2017 in the match up for the Republican Senate primary in Alabama. Of respondents who intended to vote, there is a tie between incumbent U.S. Senator Luther Strange  and Roy Moore. Luther Strange was appointed by Gov. Bentley for the seat left vacant by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and has been endorsed by President Donald Trump. Moore, a favorite of the Alt-Right, has been endorsed by Breitbart CEO Steve Bannon and Sarah Palin among others.

The graph beneath claimed that Strange had 50 percent support, while Moore had 50 percent support among likely Republican voters, and the accompanying CB Polling PDF claimed:

The breakdown of responses to the question below is as follows:
Republicans, if the Alabama Senate election run-off were held today, who would you vote for?
• Definitely Luther Strange (R)…….…………….….15%
• Probably Luther Strange (R)………………….……13%
• Definitely Roy Moore (R)……………………………14%
• Probably Roy Moore (R)……………………….……14%
• Not Voting/Not Republican.………………………44%

But the actual breakdown in the attached Google summary, as provided by CB Polling in this link, was different:

Republicans, if the Alabama Senate election run-off were held today, who would you vote for?
• Definitely Luther Strange (R)…….…………….….13.5%
• Probably Luther Strange (R)………………….……12.4%
• Definitely Roy Moore (R)……………………………14.1%
• Probably Roy Moore (R)……………………….……15.3%
• Not Voting/Not Republican.………………………44.7%