A new poll from Emerson College Polling and The Hill shows that Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) has a narrow 2-point lead over his Republican opponent Herschel Walker in the Georgia Senate runoff.
In the poll that came out on Thursday, 49 percent of likely voters said they would vote for Warnock, while 47 percent said they would vote for Walker. A separate 4% said they weren’t sure. This polling is within the margin of error, so the two candidates are pretty much tied.
When voters who weren’t sure who they wanted to vote for were asked who they were leaning toward, Warnock’s support went up to 51% and Walker’s went up to 49%. But when people were asked who they thought would win the Georgia Senate runoff no matter who they voted for, the gap got bigger: 57 percent said they thought Warnock would win, while only 43 percent thought Walker would.
This happens less than a week before the runoff election in Georgia, which is the last Senate election of the November midterms. Warnock is running for his first full term after beating former Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.) in a special election in 2020. Neither he nor Walker got the more than 50 percent of the vote they needed to avoid a runoff, though.
This race is about the people of Georgia and the choice they have regarding who’s ready to represent them in the U.S. Senate. Get to the polls and vote today!
— Reverend Raphael Warnock (@ReverendWarnock) December 1, 2022
“Warnock’s base is voters under 50; 55% of them support him for re-election,” said Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling. “Walker’s base is voters over 50; 55% of them support him for re-election.” “Those who have already voted favor Warnock by about 29 points, 63% to 34%, while those who haven’t voted yet favor Walker by eight points, 52% to 44%.”
“Even though the ballot test was close to the margin of error for the poll, most voters would be surprised if Walker won. About one in five Republicans think that their candidate will lose. This is a big change from the last poll before the general election earlier this month when voters were almost split on whether Warnock or Walker would win,” he said.
Even though it was widely believed that the midterm environment would be favorable for Republicans, Walker faces several headwinds. One of these headwinds is the fact that he is no longer on a ballot that includes Georgia Governor Brian Kemp (R), who won reelection with a comfortable margin last month.
And while the results of the midterm elections in November ensured that Democrats would at least be keeping their majority in the Senate, Republican voters would likely feel less motivated to turn out again given that the race won’t impact Democratic dominance of the upper chamber.
The Emerson College Polling-The Hill study was carried out from November 28th to November 30th, and it included responses from 888 individuals who are very likely to vote. The difference between the true value and the estimate is 3.2 percentage points, with a margin of error.
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