CHARLESTON — One week away from the start of the candidate filing period, new internal polling results released Monday from the Woody Thrasher campaign show the businessman and former Commerce Department secretary gaining on his old boss, Gov. Jim Justice.

Thrasher, who switched his party registration last year from Democrat to Republican, filed precandidacy papers to challenge Justice — who also switched from Democrat to Republican more than two years ago — in the May 12 Republican primary. New polling has Thrasher only eight points behind the governor.

The poll, conducted by WPA Intelligence Dec. 16-18 with 502 likely Republican primary voters, shows Justice with 38 percent, Thrasher with 30 percent, and former Berkeley County delegate and airline pilot Mike Folk with 6 percent. Of those polled, 26 percent remain undecided.

“We’re excited to see reliable Republican polling numbers confirm what we’ve been seeing on the ground for months — conservative voters want to elect a hard worker who shares their values, who plays by the rules and who gets things done,” said Ann Ali, communications director for the Thrasher campaign. “Woody’s track record shows he knows how to build a business from the ground up and create jobs. This poll shows people are seeing all the candidates for who they really are.”

Those numbers represent an increase of support for Thrasher, who tied Folk at 5 percent support in a WPA poll March 7-10. Justice saw his support slide from a high of 58 percent during the same time period, while Folk only saw his support increase by 1 percent. The number of unsure voters also dropped from 32 percent to 26 percent.

“With over four months until the Republican primary, as voters make their decisions, the data clearly suggests voters are moving away from Jim Justice and are supporting Woody Thrasher to be the Republican nominee,” said Conor Maguire, senior strategist with WPA Intelligence.

The WPA poll shows that Justice’s name recognition remains high with little change between March and December, a decrease of 1 percent from 99 percent to 98 percent. Thrasher’s name recognition increased from 28 percent to 67 percent, thanks in large part to a blitz of TV and radio advertising that started in the spring.

Thrasher’s favorability climbed from 8 percent to 29 percent, with his unfavorability remaining in the single digits. Justice’s favorability dropped from 62 percent to 54 percent, while his unfavorability increased from 26 percent to 32 percent, according to the WPA poll.

Of the Republican primary voters polled who had heard of the candidates, 36 percent supported Thrasher, 34 percent supported Justice, 8 percent supported Folk and 22 percent remained undecided. Of the voters who had opinions on the Republican candidates, Thrasher leads with those voters 49 percent to Justice’s 28 percent, while Folk had 9 percent and 14 percent remain undecided. WPA expects the numbers to continue to tighten as May approaches.

“This race is far from over, but it’s been gratifying to watch the hard work Woody has put in to be reflected in increased support,” Ali said. “As people get to know Woody, they want to vote for him and it is as simple as that.”

When asked about his re-electability, 17 percent of those polled said Justice should be replaced, up from 12 percent in March. Only 28 percent said Justice should be re-elected, a drop from 32 percent. The Justice and Folk campaigns dismissed the Thrasher poll as “bogus” and “garbage.”

“Given where all of the polls have been on this race, it’s not surprising that Woody is making one last-ditch effort and releasing bogus poll numbers before he has to drop out,” said Roman Stauffer, campaign manager for the Justice campaign.

“It’s garbage,” Folk said. “It’s a fake poll by a firm that didn’t ballot test all of the candidates and therefore should be considered a joke poll.”

The WPA poll was conducted with live phone interviews with 502 likely Republican primary voters with a margin of error of 4.4 percent. The candidate filing period starts Monday, and ends a midnight Jan. 25.

(Adams can be contacted at sadams@newsandsentinel.com)