Latest / In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson / Political Poll - TPR's In Focus - Oct. 23, 2026

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Political Poll - TPR's In Focus - Oct. 23, 2026 · In Focus with Carolyn Hutcheson

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  Support comes from the Wiregrass Archives at Troy University's
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  Dothan campus, identifying and preserving historical
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  documents and photographs for research related to the Wiregrass region.
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  More information at troy.edu/wiregrassarchives.
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  From Troy Public Radio, this is the News
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  Wrap, and I'm Carolyn Hutcheson. Todd Stacy,
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  host of Alabama Public Television's Capitol Journal,
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  discusses a recent political poll that
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  revealed the top concerns of Alabamians before
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  they vote. And the wild card brings to mind one of our favorite
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  children's stories.
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  Todd, welcome back to the News Wrap. Good to be with you.
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  The Alabama Daily News had a poll
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  that was very interesting. Could that be our topic today?
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  Well, yeah, it's kind of the talk of the town. We do polling pretty
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  regularly. We partner with Gray Television. That's WSFA
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  and Fox 6 and other stations. We did that again right here before the election
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  to just see what's on voters' minds, how the candidates
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  are faring. And we got some really interesting results. I'll start with
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  the issues. We asked voters, what is the top issue that you're concerned
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  about going into this election? And by far, The top issue on voters' minds
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  is inflation and larger, just the cost of living.
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  And I guess that shouldn't surprise anybody with grocery prices, gas prices.
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  I mean, it is just expensive to live these days. Actually,
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  the second most important issue was corruption in politics.
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  This has been discovered in national polling as well.
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  And it's not your kind of garden variety corruption
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  of a lawmaker taking a bribe or something like that. Something kind of
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  deeper. You're seeing a lot on the national level of the tech giants
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  and folks feeling like it's hard to get ahead while others are taking advantage of
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  the system. You've also got the crypto situation where the president's
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  family has made a ton of money off of that, and people feel like the
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  system is rigged. So for that to crop up as the second most important issue
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  is really telling and something that politicians should be paying attention to.
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  And you had 500 people surveyed for this poll.
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  So, you know, this could be a roadmap for some of the candidates.
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  Right. So that's a good sample. It comes with a margin of error of 4.3%.
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  We also asked about the candidates. We've got this election. We know that Alabama is
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  a traditionally Republican state, at least for the last 2 or 3 decades.
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  But, you know, Republicans are facing headwinds nationally. I was really
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  curious to see what those numbers were going to be. In the race
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  for governor, Tommy Tuberville was at 51% of the vote with
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  Doug Jones at 40%. So an 11-point lead. That is a
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  lot closer than you might expect. You go back to Kay Ivey's
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  last 2 elections and she won with more
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  than 60% of the vote in both 2018 and 2022.
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  So Republicans remain dominant in Alabama. That shows through
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  this poll, but it's just a snapshot. And so we'll see in 10 days on
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  Election Day what the real numbers are. Todd, I have
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  noticed that Capitol Journal is interviewing the candidates.
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  Who's on tap for tonight and Sunday? That's right.
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  So this week we have candidates for Attorney General. That's Republican
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  Katherine Robertson and Democrat Jeff McLaughlin. So I
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  hope you'll tune in for those interviews. But I'll also be talking with John
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  Rogers. He's with the Signal polling firm that did this
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  poll. Can you leave us with a wild card? Well,
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  yes. This bear in California snuck
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  into the Mono County Library And somehow
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  ended up getting into the honey, right? Of course,
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  the bear gets into the honey and steals the honey. And it just so
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  happened to be on the 100th birthday of Winnie
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  the Pooh. I grew up on Winnie the Pooh. If my mom's listening right now,
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  she will appreciate that. So this bear was,
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  was hungry for some honey and did it on such an appropriate
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  day. A beloved children's hero.
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  Thank you so much, Todd. Thank you. Joining us for the news
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  wrap was Todd Stacy, host of Alabama Public Television's
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  Capitol Journal. You can catch the show Friday nights
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  and Sundays and on YouTube. More information can
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  be found at the aptv.org website.
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  Thanks for joining us for In Focus, which is a podcast
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  wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Carolyn Hutcheson, and this
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  is listener-supported Troy Public Radio.