EXCLUSIVE: Roy Moore's lead over Doug Jones increases in new poll

(RNN) - A new Raycom News Network Senate Election poll conducted by Strategy Research finds Republican Roy Moore increasing his lead over Democrat Doug Jones with a week until the special election.

The exclusive poll of 3,200 likely Alabama voters finds if the election were held today, Moore would receive 50% of the vote to Jones with 43%. Four percent of the respondents remain undecided while three percent indicated plans to Write-In a candidate.

The margin of error of the survey conducted Monday night is +/- two percentage points (more on the way the poll was conducted can be found at the end of the story).

The new poll suggests Moore has regained some support after a dip in a November 21st RNN poll that showed a statistical tie between Moore and Jones. The November 21st poll followed 12 days of controversy surrounding allegations that Moore had pursued some teenage girls either sexually or romantically in the late 1970's when he was in his 30's and working as an assistant prosecutor in Etowah County. Moore has denied the allegations.

Among party lines, three of every four respondents (75%) who identified as typical Republican voters said they would vote for Moore. Twelve percent of Republican voters said they would vote for Jones if the election were held today. Eighty-seven percent of Democrats said they would vote for Jones.

"We're polling on a regular basis internally and it's showing our lead to be about the same thing. It's growing," Moore campaign chairman Bill Armistead said in response to the poll results.

The Jones campaign had not immediately provided a statement at the time this story was published.

Strategy Research pollster Jon Gray said Moore's support seems to have stabilized.

"A lot of momentum coming in on Roy Moore's side," Gray said. "I think we're starting to see a change in the vote from a few weeks ago when Roy Moore was really losing Republicans across the board."

The winner of the December 12th election will complete the term of former Sen. Jeff Sessions, who left the Senate in February to serve as U.S. Attorney General. The term ends in 2020.

The statewide telephone poll of 3,200 was conducted Monday night between 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Those questioned were identified as active registered voters who participated in either the 2016 General Election for president or the 2017 primary for the Alabama Senate seat and must have said "yes" when asked about plans to vote in the December 12th special election. Fifty-nine percent identified themselves as typically voting in the Republican primary and 33% identified themselves as typical Democrat primary voters. Eight percent considered themselves as independent or not typically voting in party primaries. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.

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