Tag Archives: Atlanta Journal Constitution

Trump Way Up in Georgia

Donald Trump continues to defy American political logic as is evidenced in a new Atlanta Journal-Constitution primary poll. (Go to AJC story)

By Jim Ellis — Thursday, Aug. 31, 2023

President

Trump: Georgia Numbers Jump — Former President Donald Trump continues to defy American political logic as is evidenced in a new Atlanta Journal-Constitution primary poll of the Georgia Republican electorate.

Once again we see polling evidence of Trump gaining support after being indicted. This particular study first went into the field one day after the former president and his associates were officially accused of breaking Georgia election law.

The University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs regularly conducts the research studies for the AJC. According to their just-released survey (Aug. 16-23; 807 likely and probable Republican primary voters; live interview), Trump captures 57 percent of the Republican primary respondents’ support.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a distant second at 15 percent and no other contender even reaches the five percent support threshold.

Since pollsters began testing the Georgia 2024 Republican presidential race, this current AJC poll reveals Trump’s strongest standing within the Peach State electorate. At the end of March, for example, WPA Intelligence detected a one-point DeSantis lead over Trump at 37-36 percent.

It is the crosstabs, however, that tell an even more interesting story. While Trump largely lost the 2020 presidential race because too many female suburban voters who supported him in 2016 turned toward Joe Biden four years later, this poll surprisingly projects his standing among female respondents who plan to vote in the Georgia Republican primary at 57.9 percent, an even stronger number than their male counterparts at 54.5 percent.

In fact, of the seven categories and 23 segments within the AJC respondent sample, Trump leads in all categories and fails to claim the top spot in just one segment. The seven categories are gender, race, age, education level, ideology, income, and partisan persuasion. The 23 segments are response cells within those categories.

A small number of Democrats (number undisclosed) responded that they intended to vote in the Republican presidential primary. Not surprisingly, this is the group in which Trump fails to lead.

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley is the favorite among the small number of Democrats who plan to cast their ballot in the GOP primary. In this category, Haley scores 26.1 percent support with New Jersey former Gov. Chris Christie posting 21.7 percent support. Conversely, Trump attracts only 4.3 percent among Democratic Republican primary voters.

He does rather surprisingly lead among those who identify as liberals at 30.0 percent and who say they will vote in the Republican primary. Trump holds a 12.5 point edge over Haley within this segment, and a 17.5 point advantage over Christie.

Trump’s strongest segment is found with those making between $25,000 – $49,999 annually. Here, the former president captures a whopping 76.0 percent support factor.

Though leading among the wealthiest in the sampling pool ($150,000+ annual income level), many of whom are Trump’s own peers, he records his weakest showing within a favorable cell. Within this group, the former president scores only a 30 percent support figure, though still better than any of his opponents.

The final question on the AJC poll relates to the indictment charges and just how seriously the respondents view the accusations. Here, again, we see the female respondent cell performing more in Trump’s favor than the men. A total of 46.5 percent of the female respondents believe the charges are very serious or somewhat serious. Among male respondents, that figure is a larger 52.3 percent.

Minorities break in the opposite manner, which is another surprise from this survey. Only 40 percent of minorities believe the charges are very or somewhat serious, while 48.5 percent believe they are not too serious, or not serious at all.

This poll confirms that Trump continues to enjoy strong support within the Republican primary base, which alone may be enough for him to win the presidential nomination. It is undeniably significant that these favorable partisan numbers are coming from Georgia, the state of his most recent indictment and the most important swing state overall in the general election.

Francis Suarez: Drops Presidential Bid — Miami Mayor Francis Suarez (R), who was unable to jump-start a long-shot presidential campaign, culminating with not qualifying for the first presidential debate, announced that he is officially ending his national bid. The move came with little in the way of surprise since, for the most part, he was not even registering in national polls.

A Curiously Conflicting Georgia Poll

By Jim Ellis

“The negative driver for this [Georgia poll] appears to be President Biden.”

Feb. 1, 2022 — The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) released one of their regular Georgia statewide polls that the School of Public and International Affairs from the University of Georgia administers (Jan. 13-24; 872 registered Georgia voters, live interview) and the results reflect an electorate with some conflicting views.

While President Biden’s job approval ratio has taken a steep dive since the news entity’s May 2021 survey was published, and the right track/wrong track question is heavily lopsided toward the negative, the current statewide office holders and even the state legislature land in the positive approval realm. Yet, in the accompanying ballot test numbers, the tested Democratic officials are trailing despite brandishing the relatively positive approval ratios.

President Biden now records a combined 34:61 percent favorable to unfavorable index (13 percent strongly approve; 21 percent somewhat approve; 11 percent somewhat disapprove; 50 percent strongly disapprove), which is a huge net reduction of 32 percentage points from his combined 51:46 percent score in May (28 percent strongly approve; 23 percent somewhat approve; 9 percent somewhat disapprove; 37 percent strongly disapprove).

In the new January poll, the respondents believe, in a very poor 17:71 percent ratio, that the country is on the wrong track. They also feel Georgia is headed in the wrong direction, but with less intensity, 34:48 percent negative. The May AJC poll, with a shorter questionnaire, did not ask similar track questions.

The sense of the nation figures in the January study, however, also seem inconsistent with how these same respondents rate their elected federal officials. Sens. Raphael Warnock (D) and Jon Ossoff (D) record 44:35 percent and 43:35 percent positive ratios, respectively. This tells us that the sampling universe members don’t hold their senators particularly responsible for the country being on the perceived wrong track.

In another inconsistency, the senator who is on the 2022 ballot, Rev. Warnock, actually trails his prospective general election opponent, former Georgia and NFL football star Herschel Walker (R), despite the positive job approval sentiment. In this AJC poll, Walker holds a 47-44 percent lead. This latter finding is also consistent with a recent Quinnipiac University study (Jan. 19-24; 1,702 registered Georgia voters, live interview) that gave the challenger an edge, but with a smaller 49-48 percent split.

The governor’s numbers show a similar inconsistency. In Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) case, while the state is viewed as headed in the wrong direction, the chief executive does not appear to be shouldering an excessive amount of blame. His job approval lies in the positive realm at 49:43 percent favorable to unfavorable. Paired with his likely general election opponent, 2018 gubernatorial nominee and former state House Minority Leader Stacey Abrams (D), Kemp leads 48-41 percent.

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Disputing the Georgia Poll

By Jim Ellis

Former DeKalb County, Georgia chief executive officer and ex-state representative, Vernon Jones

May 11, 2021 — At the end of last week, the Remington Research Group released a survey of the Georgia 2022 Republican gubernatorial primary for their client, former DeKalb County chief executive officer and ex-state representative Vernon Jones. The results were met with some derision.

The poll (May 1-3; 1,040 likely Republican primary voters, interactive voice response system) finds Gov. Brian Kemp leading Jones only 39-35 percent, and an Atlanta Journal Constitution reporter responded with negative comments about the poll’s credibility and cited unnamed GOP consultants who allegedly agree with this analysis.

Greg Bluestein of the AJC said in response to the poll’s publishing, “suffice it to say we have not found one person with proven knowledge about Georgia politics who believes the poll is credible.” He further stated that, “the last two independent polls I’ve seen show Gov. Kemp leading Jones 74-17 percent and Kemp up 64-14 percent.” There is no evidence that these latter polls have been publicly released, however.

To reject the Remington poll in such a manner should not be considered a legitimate response. The Remington Research Group is a national pollster that specializes in interactive voice response systems and are certainly a well-established survey research firm.

According to the FiveThirtyEight statistical website that ranks polling firms, we find the RRG earning a B grade and placed as the 103rd entity of the 482 polling organizations in the FiveThirtyEight universe. This means the pollster lands in the top 22 percent of all tested survey research firms. Therefore, to reject Remington’s latest Georgia findings as not credible is an analysis and comment trail that should be discounted.

Gov. Kemp’s popularity among Georgia Republicans clearly suffered after the election controversy in his state. At the low point, according to the Morning Consult data intelligence firm, his personal favorability rating stood with a 62:31 percent positive to negative ratio among members of his own party, which is touching the danger zone for any office holder.

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Perdue Changes Course in Georgia

By Jim Ellis

Former Georgia Sen. David Perdue (R)

Feb. 25, 2021 — Just when former Sen. David Perdue (R) appeared prepared to challenge new Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) in the 2022 general election, he abruptly reversed course and announced Tuesday that he will not run. Perdue had filed a 2022 campaign committee with the Federal Election Commission, but such action does not make one an official candidate.

Without Perdue in the 2022 race, the fight for the Republican nomination becomes a free-for-all. Earlier in the week former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R), who lost her Jan. 5 Senate runoff election, as did Sen. Perdue, confirmed that she is considering running in 2022 in addition to forming a grassroots organization with the goal of increasing right-of-center voter registration in Georgia.

Former Rep. Doug Collins (R), who lost in the 2020 special Senate election, placing behind Sens. Warnock and Loeffler in the crowded jungle primary, also said that he is considering a new run for the Senate, or even a potential Republican nomination challenge to Gov. Brian Kemp.

Yesterday, Atlanta Journal Constitution political reporter Greg Bluestein listed several more Republicans who apparently have not yet ruled out a Senate bid next year. They are: Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, Attorney General Chris Carr, Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black, and former US Ambassador to Luxembourg Randy Evans.

In the Nov. 3 special jungle primary, Rev. Warnock captured the highest vote total, 1,617,035 of 4,914,361 ballots cast from within a field of 20 candidates. Sen. Loeffler placed second, 292,760 votes ahead of third place finisher Collins.

The fact that Loeffler finished substantially ahead of Collins will be one argument she will likely use to convince base voters that she is most able to defeat Sen. Warnock this time around. Collins, conversely, will contend that a Republican primary is very different than a special election in a regular voting schedule, thus suggesting that he is better positioned to win a primary nomination and develop a stronger base from which to oppose Sen. Warnock.

With Georgia changing politically, any Republican nominee is going to have a difficult time unseating Sen. Warnock but doing so is certainly within the realm of possibility. In the Jan. 5 runoff, while both Loeffler and Perdue were losing to their respective Democratic opponents, a third race was also on the ballot.

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Georgia Polling Dichotomy

By Jim Ellis

Oct. 16, 2020 — An October polling plethora has been released in Georgia, which is becoming one of the most important 2020 election cycle states both in terms of the presidential and US Senate outcomes. As the only state featuring two US Senate races, Georgia has attracted more than its share of polling universe attention.

Quinnipiac University released new data yesterday that either is detecting a new trend or is an outlier. Their results give Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and US Senate candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock big leads in their respective races, something no other survey research firm is reporting.

The Quinnipiac poll (Oct. 8-12; 1,040 likely Georgia voters, live interview) finds Biden posting a 51-44 percent lead over President Trump, Ossoff claiming a similar 51-45 percent advantage over Sen. David Perdue (R), and Rev. Warnock outpacing both Rep. Doug Collins (R-Gainesville) and appointed Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) by 19 and 21 percentage points (41-22-20 percent).

Six other pollsters, also surveying in October, largely see things much differently.

Polling within the same period as Quinnipiac are Survey USA, Data for Progress, and Morning Consult.

Survey USA chose exactly the same sampling period as Quinnipiac, Oct. 8-12. With a sample size of 877 likely Georgia voters also in live interviews, they see a dissimilar political landscape. While they find Biden leading in the presidential race, his margin is only two points, 48-46 percent.

The two pollsters’ Senate numbers are starkly different. S-USA finds Sen. Perdue leading Ossoff, 46-43 percent, a net nine-point variance when directly compared with Quinnipiac. The jungle primary special election race is even more disparate. While Quinnipiac projects one of the biggest leads for Warnock during the entire election cycle, S-USA finds only a four-point difference between he and Sen. Loeffler, 30-26 percent, a far cry from the Q-Poll’s 41-20 percent.

The two pollsters even see a different ballot test order. While the Q-Poll finds a Warnock-Collins-Loeffler split, Survey USA projects a virtual three-way battle among Warnock, Loeffler, and Collins. The latter poll posts Rep. Collins’ statewide support at 20 percent.

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GA-6 – Dead Even

By Jim Ellis

June 15, 2017 — The long Georgia special election cycle is mercifully almost over, as this most expensive-ever congressional race draws to a close next Tuesday. Looking at the aggregate spending, this one House campaign will easily exceed $40 million in combined expenditures, probably topping $25 million for Democrat Jon Ossoff’s campaign committee alone when the financial books close at the reporting cycle’s end.

The polls have forecast a close race between Ossoff and former Secretary of State Karen Handel (R) immediately upon both advancing from the April 18 jungle primary. The most recent study, from Survey USA polling for WXIA-TV in Atlanta (June 7-11, 700 registered GA-6 voters; 503 either likely June 20 participants or those who have voted early), finds the two again tied at 47 percent. This is a marked improvement for Handel in comparison to both S-USA’s previous poll and last week’s Abt Associates survey for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, both of which found Ossoff holding a 51-44 percent advantage.

All three of these polls, however, are apparently understating Republican strength. In party segmentation, the GOP/lean GOP cell has only small advantages over the Democrat/Lean Democrat grouping. This is largely due to over-emphasizing the close 2016 presidential race when constructing the respondent pool. Since Georgia does not register voters by political party affiliation, it becomes more difficult to determine an accurate party sample for polling purposes.

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