There is a number that has gotten too little attention in Alabama’s Senate primary. That number is $950,000. That is what it has cost-per percentage point gained to move Barry Moore from 16% to 22.8% in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Over $6 million in outside spending. A presidential endorsement. Eight months of a campaign built on the premise that this race was already decided. And the result, as of the March 2026 Alabama Poll, is a three-way statistical tie.
Read that again. Moore at 22.8%. Steve Marshall at 20.7%. Jared Hudson at 19.0%. All three within the poll’s ±4.0 percent margin of error. And 34.5% of likely Republican primary voters still firmly undecided. The most expensive opening argument in modern Alabama primary history has produced a dead heat.
I run The Alabama Poll. We have surveyed this race four times since August 2025. I have no candidate in this race, no donor to please, and no narrative to protect. I follow the data. And right now, the data says the conventional wisdom – that the Trump endorsement and the money behind it have effectively decided this primary – is wrong.
Let me be precise about what the numbers show, because precision matters when the prevailing narrative has outpaced the data.
Start with the money. The financial landscape of this race is staggering in its asymmetry. Moore’s campaign has raised roughly $1.35 million directly, roughly in line with the other candidates. But the real story is the outside spending: over $5.2 million in FEC-reported independent expenditures, plus an additional $1.25 million announced by Club for Growth. Total committed resources behind Moore’s candidacy: approximately $7.8 million. Marshall, by contrast, has raised $1.11 million with zero outside spending. Hudson: $853,000, also with zero outside support. Moore’s resource advantage is seven to one.
And he leads by 2.1 points. Less than the margin of error.
The cost-per-point math is brutal and unavoidable. A gain of 6.8 percentage points over eight months at a cost north of $6.4 million. That is not a campaign building momentum. That is a campaign buying name identification at a price that does not scale – and discovering that name identification is not the same thing as voter commitment.
Now consider what that money was supposed to destroy. Marshall entered this race in August 2025 at 37%. Today he sits at 20.7%. The surface-level reading says he’s collapsing. The data says the opposite. What happened between August and March was field clarification – the soft, name-ID-driven default vote separating from a genuinely committed coalition as the field became competitive. The 20.7% that remains has not moved despite $6 million in opposing expenditure, a presidential endorsement for his opponent, and a full-bore campaign aimed directly at him. That is not a retreat. That is a proven floor.
The more interesting question is the ceiling. Marshall enters the advertising phase – he has not yet spent on paid media – with a 39.5% favorable rating, geographic breadth across media markets representing 78% of the primary electorate, and a double-digit net favorability advantage over Moore in Birmingham (+22 vs. +9), Huntsville (+24 vs. +19), and Mobile (+26 vs. +22). Those three markets alone account for 78% of Republican primary voters. Moore’s favorable territory – Dothan and Montgomery/Meridian – represents 17%.
To win, Moore’s endorsement and spending must close double-digit favorability gaps in the markets where four out of five primary voters live. And the Trump endorsement still has to introduce him to the 24.3% of voters who have never heard of him – and then persuade them to choose him over a candidate they already know and like. That task has not gotten easier since February. It has gotten shorter.
Then there is Jared Hudson – the candidate the conventional wisdom forgot. Hudson has moved from 7% in August to 19% in March on a fraction of Moore’s resources. That trajectory tells you something important about how this electorate is moving. Voters who are leaving the undecided column are not all going to the endorsed candidate with the seven-to-one spending advantage. They are shopping. And Hudson’s movement – on approximately $853,000 in total fundraising and zero outside spending – represents the most capital-efficient growth in the race.
The endorsement question deserves its own scrutiny. In August 2025, a generic Trump endorsement produced a +47 net positive effect among Alabama Republican primary voters. By March 2026, that number had dropped to +34. Let me be clear: this is not a statement about Trump’s popularity. His job approval among Alabama Republicans is 82.3%, with a net of +66. Those numbers are extraordinary. What the trend reflects is a well-documented phenomenon in primary politics: early in the cycle, voters respond to the endorser; later in the cycle, they evaluate the candidate bearing the endorsement. This race is in the second phase. Roughly 31% of voters say the Trump endorsement of Moore makes no difference to their vote. Among that group, Moore must make a candidate-driven argument – on his own terms, in his own voice. The outside spending of others and Washington, D.C., endorsements cannot do that work for him.
The counterargument Moore’s team would make is that the early spending was foundational – name-ID and brand-building – and the conversion happens when everything goes on television simultaneously. That is a legitimate argument. It is also the argument you make when the numbers aren’t where they should be after seven months of field-clearing expenditure and a resource advantage that dwarfs anything in modern Alabama primary history.
There is a natural desire for this race to be settled – for the narrative to match the investment. But the crosstabs of four consecutive Alabama Polls say the same thing they have said since August: this race is not over. It is not close to over. Three candidates are tied within the margin of error. Two of them have significant resources they have not yet deployed. And more than a third of the electorate has not made up its mind.
I follow the data. The data says the most interesting Senate primary in Alabama in a generation is just getting started.
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Methodology: The Alabama Poll surveyed n=600 likely May 2026 Republican Primary voters statewide on March 22–24, 2026 via multi-modal approach (live telephone and text-to-web). Margin of error ±4.0 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.
Michael T. Lowry is the founder and principal of The Alabama Poll and the founder of Backstop Strategies, a Washington, D.C.-based government affairs firm. A native Alabamian, he has more than 30 years of experience in politics and government and most recently served as chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Robert Aderholt.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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