EXCLUSIVE POLL: Superintendent Janet Barresi In Close Race With Challengers

There is a big a primary election coming up in June and one of the hotly contested races is for state school superintendent.

We've released the results from a News9/News On 6 poll and, at this point, it suggests a wide-open race for the job currently held by Janet Barresi.

We have an exclusive first look at how the candidates are doing in the race for school superintendent.

On the Republican side, the candidates are about even.

Our News9/News On 6 poll shows 17.1 percent of likely Republican voters support challenger Joy Hofmeister. 16.4 percent want to re-elect Janet Barresi. 14.3 percent favor Brian Kelly. And a whopping 52 percent are still undecided, so this is anyone's race.

Full Republican primary poll results

Our pollster points out Barresi's low number could mean voters are unhappy with her performance or confused because she added her maiden name, Costello, to the ballot this year.

"I think the question remains is why did Janet decide to do that. Did she think that it would help her or hurt her. If she was thinking it was going to help her, from my polling results indicate that at this point it's not. There is a level of confusion," said Bill Shapard, SoonerPoll.com CEO.

"Uncertainty" describes the Democrat primary for state school superintendent.

The majority -- nearly 64 percent of likely Democrat voters -- haven't made up their mind in this race. The poll shows 14 percent favor Freda Deskin. 10.6 percent support John Cox. 8.3 percent like Ivan Holmes and 3.5 percent favor Jack Herron Jr. It is still anyone's race.

Full Democratic primary poll results

By the way, we spoke with Janet Barresi's campaign, they said she added her maiden name to the ballot for no other reason but to honor her father.

SoonerPoll conducted the surveys between May 5 and May 10. Respondents were selected at random using landlines and cell phones. Results were weighted by gender, age, cell phone/landline collection and Congressional district, then stratified using a model of previous primary elections. The Republican primary poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.07 percentage points. The Democrat primary poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.90 percentage points.