Lucas Kunce Within Striking Distance of Josh Hawley—Internal Poll

New internal polling for Democratic Senate hopeful Lucas Kunce’s Missouri campaign suggests he is within striking distance of incumbent Republican Senator Josh Hawley.
Hawley, a staunch supporter of former President Donald Trump and Missouri’s former attorney general, has served in the Senate since 2019 after he defeated Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill in the 2018 midterm election. Kunce, a Marine veteran, aims to flip the seat back to Democratic control, which would go a long way to help Democrats secure their tenuous Senate majority.
Recent public polls have shown Hawley leading by double-digit margins, and The Cook Political Report rates the contest as “solid Republican.” But polling by GQR, which describes itself as one of the world’s premier opinion research and strategic consulting firm, for Kunce’s campaign, which was shared exclusively with Newsweek, shows a relatively tight race.
Newsweek reached out to Hawley’s campaign for comment via email on Friday.
The survey shows Hawley in the lead with 50 percent support, but Kunce is just 4 points behind at 46 percent. An additional 1 percent said they’d support Libertarian candidate W.C. Young, and another 1 percent said the same for Better Party contender Jared Young.
Notably, the same poll shows the Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, trailing GOP nominee former President Donald Trump by 11 points, 55 percent to 44 percent. A majority of the survey respondents (55 percent) said they supported Trump in 2020, while 43 percent said they backed President Joe Biden.
Hawley was also viewed favorably by more of the respondents than Kunce. Just under half, 46 percent, said they viewed the Republican senator “very” or “somewhat” favorably, and 38 percent said the same for Kunce.
The poll included 645 Missouri voters and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.86 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence interval. It was conducted from September 6 to 12.
“Hawley and his allies are clearly seeing the same movement in the polls,” a source close to the Kunce campaign told Newsweek on Friday, pointing to negative attack ads targeting the Democrat and increased ad spending by Hawley and his supporters.
The most recent public polls of the race paint a starkly different picture.
Polling from Remington Research for political news site The Missouri Scout, which was carried out from September 4 to 5, had Hawley up by 15 points. The Republican was at 52 percent to Kunce’s 37 percent. Remington Research is a GOP polling firm. Similarly, survey data by YouGov and Saint Louis University in August had Kunce trailing by 11 points.
Kunce has aimed to position himself as an everyday Missourian and touted his background as a veteran. In an interview with Newsweek in August, Kunce said it’s a problem that Missouri doesn’t currently have any veterans in its congressional delegation.
“One of the failings that we have here in Missouri is that not a single member of Congress from Missouri is a veteran, not any of them,” he said.
The campaign also hopes it will be buoyed by a seemingly popular amendment to enshrine abortion access in the state’s constitution, which will be on the ballot in November. The new internal GQR poll showed 56 percent of Missouri voters would “probably” or “definitely” support it. The August YouGov poll show 52 percent would support the measure.
Democrats have previously seen significant success with these amendments, even in conservative-leaning states. While many voters may cast their ballots in favor of the amendment while also supporting Republicans, Democrats have repeatedly seen surges in support in races where the issue was on the ballot.
“We are really trying to take power back from politicians like Josh Hawley, who want to control us and take our power away,” Kunce told Newsweek in August. “He wants to control us in the bedroom, the doctor’s office…”
Conversely, Hawley has criticized Kunce on issues related to transgender rights and tied him to liberal priorities of national Democrats. He’s also accused Kunce of hiding from the press and not holding events.
“Well, six weeks and counting of @LucasKunceMO hide-and-seek campaign: no public events, refused to debate me at the Fair, and now won’t even answer if he supports Kamala!” Hawley wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Thursday.
Kunce’s campaign pushed back against Hawley’s criticism.
“Josh Hawley hasn’t hosted a public event in a month, and he’s refused every televised debate. Meanwhile, Lucas has been all across this state in front of packed audiences. The proof is in this very poll,” Connor Lounsbury, a senior adviser to Kunce’s campaign, told Newsweek.
Update, 9/13/24 at 2:45 p.m. ET: Additional comment and context was added.