Dueling polls in Indiana show different landscape. (Photo by Tero Vesalainen/Getty Images)
A new Emerson College Poll shows Republicans Mike Braun and Todd Rokita with solid leads in their statewide races.
Braun is leading Democrat Jennifer McCormick 45% to 34% in the race for governor, with Libertarian Donald Rainwater at 5.8%. The rest are undecided.
In the Attorney General’s contest, Rokita polled at 49% compared to Democrat Destiny Wells at 35%.
Those numbers are starkly different than a poll released by the Wells campaign last week that showed both races within the margin of error.
Third District Congressman Jim Banks, who is running for U.S. Senate, is up 46.6% to 33.3% against Democrat Valerie McCray. Libertarian Andrew Horning is at 4.6%.
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump has the highest numbers in Indiana. About 57% of Hoosiers said they would support him if the election were held today, compared to about 40% for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
The survey of 1,000 likely voters was conducted September 12-13 and has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
In the Wells poll, about 51% of likely voters were Republican, 36% were Democrats and 7% were independents. In the Emerson poll, about 45% were Republicans, 32% were Democrats and more than 23% independents.
The Emerson Poll methodology pairs an automated system that collects data over landline phones with an online panel of participants. So-called panel polls are becoming more popular than standard sampling partially due to their reduced cost.
Wells said Indiana is a red state and Republicans should be over 50% at this point.