Renzo Downey
With Election Day less than a week away, retired Okaloosa County Judge Patt Maney holds a significant lead in the Republican primary dogfight in House District 4.
Ahead of the Tuesday election, Maney holds a 10-point lead over his next-closest challenger, Jeff Hinkle, according to the latest survey from St. Pete Polls. Although 19% of likely voters still remain undecided or wouldn’t say who they’ll vote for, the four-way race will make it difficult for another candidate to pull ahead.
Complicating the race for Hinkle, Jonathan Tallman and Sandra Atkinson is that 40% of respondents said they had already voted, and 40% of those cast their vote for Maney.
Overall, Maney leads with 35% to Hinkle’s 25%, Tallman’s 12% and Atkinson’s 10%.
Maney’s lead extends to a 19-point lead among those who have already voted. That breaks down to 40% for Maney, 21% for Hinkle and 14% for both Tallman and Atkinson.
A poll sent to Florida Politics last month showed Maney leading with 29% ahead of Tallman, who polled at 12%.
The candidates started lining up for the seat after Ponder announced he would forego a third term in the House and would instead run for Okaloosa County Commission.
Hinkle, an entrepreneur and Chairman of the Republican Party of Okaloosa County, has staked $234,000 of his personal funds on the race. And of the half a million spent by Republicans in HD 4, Hinkle has spent the majority of it, helping him narrow the gap with Maney.
But Hinkle’s attack ads calling Maney a “Never Trumper” haven’t been enough. One ad ran an out of context quote by Maney saying “I did not work for President (Donald) Trump” while explaining why he didn’t campaign for the President as an elected judge.
St. Pete Polls used an automated phone call to reach Republican primary voters in the district, only taking responses from self-described likely voters. The poll, with a sample size of 468 had a 4.5% margin of error at a 95% confidence level, putting Maney squarely in the lead.
Nearly 10% of voters say they will vote by mail.
One comment
Jeff Hinkle
August 14, 2020 at 5:31 pm
Your article – in my opinion is likely paid for by another campaign – is disingenuos at best and more likely a paid attempt at electioneering. Maney has not been a judge for over 2 years and we as the local party have asked him for help and donations for President Trumps local election on multiple occasions in 2020. He has not put a dime in his own campaign and is worth over 3.6mm so I am sure he could afford a small donation yet he has refused both times. Our poll conducted by a paid independent third party (not a poll conducted by your own internal guys) shows Hinkle with a slight lead at this point and the official local republican party poll conducted by the party’s former executive director shows Hinkle with a significant lead. Tuesday night at 8 pm CST we will know which of all of these polls are correct. We do agree with you on all of the other candidates numbers though. Just like the last poll you strategically excluded Hinkle’s strong numbers and only posted Tallman and Maney. Which one paid for that article? Have a great weekend.
Comments are closed.