ATLANTA (NewsNation Now) — President Donald Trump is in a statistical dead heat with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in Georgia, a NewsNation/Emerson poll out Monday shows.
Among likely Georgia voters polled, 48% say they intend to vote for Trump, with 47% saying they will cast their ballot for the former vice president. 5% of those polled said they will vote for someone else, with 1% remaining undecided with just over two weeks left until Election Day.
“With just two weeks until the election, Trump is underperforming his 2016 numbers in Georgia, but he may benefit from competitive Senate races and generally greater enthusiasm among his voters,” Spencer Kimball, Director of Emerson College Polling, noted.
81% of Trump voters responded they are extremely or very excited to support him, and 74% of Biden supporters reported the same levels of excitement. However, a strong majority of Trump supporters (68%) say they are “extremely excited” compared to 49% of Biden voters.
Georgia voters polled are split on President Trump’s job performance, with 49% approving and 48% disapproving.
As for the issues, voters say the most important issue as they cast their ballot is the economy at 36%, followed by COVID-19 response at 18%, social justice at 15% and healthcare at 14%.
U.S. Senate races in Georgia
There are two U.S. Senate races on the Georgia ballot. In the first, Republican Senator David Perdue is statistically tied with Democratic challenge Jon Ossof, 46% to 45%. 6% remain undecided and 3% say they are voting for someone else.
In the second race, a special election, a field of five candidates is led by Republican Rep. Doug Collins and Democrat Raphael Wornack, each with 27%, followed by current U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler at 20%. If no candidate surpasses 50% of the total vote, then a run off with the two top vote getters will be held Jan. 5, 2021.
How the NewsNation/Emerson poll was conducted
The Georgia Emerson College poll was conducted October 17-19, 2020. The sample consisted of likely Democratic, Republican, and Independent voters, n=506, with a Credibility Interval (CI) similar to a poll’s margin of error (MOE) of +/- 4.3 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, age, education, race and region based on 2016 voter turnout modeling. It is important to remember that subsets based on gender, age, party breakdown, ethnicity, and region carry with them higher margins of error, as the sample size is reduced. Data was collected using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system of landlines (n=186), SMS-to-web texts (n=107), and an online panel provided by MTurk (n=213).
The perception of political polling took a hit after polls in 2016 overestimated support for Hillary Clinton. As a result, much of the country was surprised when Donald Trump won the election.