Polls circulate showing tight secretary of state race, plus Bo Duke actor weighs in

Political polls are backing up what extensive campaign advertising indicates — that the Indiana secretary of state race is tight as early voting starts next week.

Polling figures that spread online Friday show Republican nominee Max Engling and Democrat Beau Bayh within a few percentage points of each other and far ahead of Lincoln Party candidate Greg Ballard and Libertarian Lauri Shillings.

A poll from Hoosier Leadership for America, a political group associated with U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, found Engling with 38% support to Bayh’s 37%. Shillings had 6% support and Ballard 5% with 14% undecided in the poll of likely voters taken Sept. 27-30.

Engling was a top staffer to Banks before the Republican senator endorsed him in May over current Secretary of State Diego Morales for the GOP nomination.

Bayh’s campaign, meanwhile, put out figures from an early September poll showing Bayh ahead of Engling 42%-36%, with Ballard and Shillings both at 5% and 12% undecided.

That poll of likely voters was taken Sept. 1-3, about three weeks after Bayh had started statewide television advertising and before Engling’s broadcast ads began in mid-September.

The campaign of Ballard, a former Republican Indianapolis mayor who is running under the Lincoln Party banner, was rankled by the low figures from those polls. The campaign knocked the Hoosier Leadership for America poll as coming from a dark-money group that gave an improper $60,000 contribution to Engling’s campaign.

“If they think these numbers for Mayor Ballard are accurate, why are they spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to attack him on TV?” Ballard’s campaign said in a statement.

Shillings was encouraged by the poll, saying “Just 10% in this race changes Indiana politics forever. It sends a clear message that we’ve had enough and we aren’t going to be manipulated anymore. This poll has us at a strong 6% in a Republican sponsored poll. With 14% still undecided, we can make it past the 10% mark and send a clear, undeniable message to those who stopped listening to us long ago.”

Monday is the voter registration deadline for the Nov. 3 election. Early in-person voting starts Tuesday.

Bo Duke actor knocks Beau Bayh in video

Engling’s campaign also circulated on social media an video endorsement from 1980s TV series “Dukes of Hazzard” star John Schneider, who described himself as “the original Bo.”

Schneider, an outspoken President Donald Trump supporter from Louisiana, says in the one-minute video that Engling is “a real conservative, a real Republican with real experience” and disparages Bayh.

“I want you to listen to this Bo, OK?” Schneider said. “Not the other Beau. I mean, come on, he’s a cute kid, but he’s a cute kid who’s a Democrat running on Republican values and a Republican platform.”