The Atlanta Journal Constitution poll,
released Friday, showed Clinton with a 4-point lead over Trump,
excluding third-party candidates. The Democratic nominee retains an
advantage, 41% to 38%, with Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green
Party candidate Jill Stein included in the survey. Johnson pulls 11%
support, while Stein garners 2%.
Since
1964, Georgia has only voted for a Democratic presidential candidate
three times -- for favorite son Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, and Bill
Clinton in 1992.
According to the
poll, Trump and Clinton are viewed unfavorably by an equal share of
registered voters at 58% each. And the newspaper reports that "a
majority of Trump backers said they see their decision as a vote against
Clinton" as opposed to a vote for Trump.
Clinton's surprising edge in Georgia follows a week of favorable
national and
battleground state
polling for the former secretary of state after a bounce from the
Democratic National Convention and fueled by Trump's own difficult
stretch.
Rep. Jack Kingston, a Republican from Georgia and adviser to Trump, dismissed the survey in an interview on CNN Friday.
Kingston
explained, "We hear this every year about this time, 'Oh, Georgia's
turning, it's going to be a purple state and then it's going to become a
blue state,' but it never happens. I think if you poll, and I think
there were 862 people polled in this particular poll, if you poll
downtown Atlanta, you skew your poll to Atlanta, then you get numbers
like this. I don't think the poll was very scientific at all."
Kingston
also argued Clinton would waste her time trying to flip Georgia blue.
"I'll say this as somebody who has run statewide in the state of Georgia
and has helped dozens of candidates who have -- I hope that Hillary
Clinton spends a lot of time in Georgia and spends a lot of money
because that will free up our resources to go to Pennsylvania, Florida
and other states."
The Atlanta
Journal Constitution poll was conducted between August 1 and 4, and
surveyed 847 registered Georgia voters. It has a margin of error of +/- 4
points.
No comments:
Post a Comment