A polling memo issued to Alabama House Speaker Mike Hubbard’s campaign and shared with Yellowhammer News states that almost 8 in 10 (79%) voters in Hubbard’s Auburn-area House District approve of the job he’s doing as their representative.
The survey of House District 79 was performed by well-known national Republican polling firm McLaughlin & Associates, whose clients list includes House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the American Conservative Union, Club for Growth, the RNC, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and numerous current and former senators, congressmen and U.S. presidential candidates, among others.
“Hubbard’s numbers are through the roof,” McLaughlin & Associates President Jim McLaughlin told Yellowhammer. “Folks like what he’s doing on the economy and jobs and feel like he’s leading the legislature to fight back against Washington overreaching. The poll shows that voters are really responding to that.”
McLaughlin, who has been polling Alabama routinely over the last decade, said that while the media has successfully demonized grassroots conservatives in many parts of the country, people in Alabama continue to say they identify with what the Tea Party stands for — limited government, lower taxes and strict adherence to the Constitution.
“The Tea Party is still very important in Alabama, and not just in the Republican primary,” McLaughlin noted. The Tea Party remains very popular in a lot of swing Districts across the state as well.”
According to the McLaughlin poll, Hubbard’s job approval rises to 89% among voters in District 79 who identify themselves as “very conservative.” McLaughlin also said that the Republican majority in the legislature has a favorability rating of over 50%, a stark contrast with Congress whose approval rating hovers in the low teens.
While a majority of Republicans nationally say they want the Party to move in a more conservative direction, Alabamians seem to be pleased with their current representation.
Yellowhammer asked Speaker Hubbard Tuesday afternoon why he and the Republican majority in the legislature are polling so well, especially with the anti-incumbent atmosphere that is so pervasive right now.
“In my case, and all of the GOP members in the legislature, we’re not viewed as the incumbents,” Hubbard said. “We’re viewed as the reformers. We’ve only been in charge three years after being out for 136 years. We’re shaking up the status quo. We’re changing the way Montgomery operates.”
But will their popularity wane as we move closer to the 2014 elections?
McLaughlin pointed out that rising to a leadership position, as Hubbard has, typically causes a candidate’s popularity to fall.
“I’ve seen it happen time and time again,” said McLaughlin. “They just need to continue what they’re doing. Voters are used to their representatives going to Montgomery or Washington, D.C. and not keeping their promises. So far the voters feel like they’re delivering. If they keep doing that, I see no reason they shouldn’t continue being popular.”
Republicans nationally are fighting to maintain their majority in the U.S. House and regain the majority in the U.S. Senate. In Alabama, the voters gifted Republicans with a super majority in both houses of the legislature. It will be a challenge to maintain those numbers, but Hubbard told Yellowhammer he believes Republicans may pick up even more seats — that is, if they can fight off what he called “those who would like to see Montgomery go back to the way it was.”
“I’m optimistic about a couple of pick up opportunities we have. A lot of people want us to fail, but we’ve been preparing for them since right after the 2010 elections. We know what the opposition is going to do. They’re going to try to run ‘fake Republicans’ in GOP primaries. We’re going to do everything we can to stop them. Right now the numbers look great.”
Here are the rest of the numbers from the McLaughlin poll:
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