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Poll measures power of former GOP senators endorsements

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Remington Research Group released the results of an independent survey designed to measure the impact of endorsements from Missouri’s former GOP senators Tuesday.

The polling company asked 1,028 likely Missouri Republican primary voters their opinion on former U.S. Senators Kit Bond, John Ashcroft and Jack Danforth, as well as whether or not an endorsement from that senator to a candidate would affect their voting behavior.

Bond and Ashcroft commanded high favorability rankings, with Bond earning a 50 percent favorability rating to Ashcroft’s 43 percent. Danforth only received a 38 percent positive favorability rating. Twenty-four percent of Republicans did not view Bond favorably, compared to 20 percent for Ashcroft and 22 percent for Danforth.

However, an endorsement from Ashcroft seems to hold more weight than one from Bond. A full 41 percent of respondents said an endorsement from Ashcroft would make them more likely to support a certain candidate. Bond only garnered 36 percent on that same measure while 25 percent of people say an endorsement from Bond would make them less likely to support a candidate.

Danforth sits at the bottom rung of the ladder in this metric. Only 27 percent of voters say an endorsement from Danforth would get them to support a candidate, 25 percent of voters says a Danforth endorsement would make them less likely to support that candidate. Since the results are within the poll’s margin of error, it means an endorsement from Danforth could be more of a liability than anything else.

“The main takeaway from this survey is the ineffectiveness of an endorsement from former Sen. Danforth,” Titus Bond, the leader of the Remington Research Group, said. “Best case scenario for a candidate accepting Danforth’s endorsement is a net zero benefit on support, worst case scenario is that Danforth’s endorsement will hurt his chosen candidate.”

The margin of error for the survey is +/- 3.3 percent with a 95 percent level of confidence.