By NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — A political science professor at the University of Kansas says it appears right now that the U.S. Senate race in Kansas is too close to call.
"We have four polls," said Patrick Miller. "The way you interpret polls is, you take the estimates, you stick that margin of error in and in all four polls, there is no clear leader in the poll in the sense that either candidate could actually be ahead, if we factor in the margin of error. At least in three of the four polls, one of the candidates, in one case, Bollier and in two cases Marshall is ahead by a little bit more. Polls are always going to vary."
Just because polls are different doesn't mean they aren't good.
"Good polls of the same race are not going to tell you the same exact thing, even if they are taken on the same day," Miller said. "I would just urge people to look at the body of polling and what that's telling you. That is that, among voters who are decided in the race, you seem to have no clear leader, but there is a chunk who are undecided."
The path to victory may seem theoretically easier for Roger Marshall, due to the Presidential race at the top of the ticket, but there is a path for Barbara Bollier, as well.
"Those individuals who are undecided in the Senate race, there is a chunk of them who are also undecided in the Presidential race," Miller said. "Whether those people are going to vote at all, who knows, whether they are just going to decide at the last minute, who knows, but there are a chunk who are undecided there, up for grabs. Among the undecided voters in the Senate race who know who they are voting for, for President, they do lean about two to one towards Trump."
The key to the race may be how many Trump voters Bollier can pick up or not.