Poll: Jon Ossoff, Raphael Warnock Leading GOP Incumbents in Battleground Georgia

Democratic Candidate for U.S. Senate Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock speak at a campai
Megan Varner/Getty Images
Hannah Knudsen

Democrat Senate candidates Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff are leading GOP incumbent Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) in battleground Georgia less than a week from the January 5 runoff elections, according to a JMC Analytics and Polling survey released this week.

The survey, taken December 28-29, among 500 registered voters in the state, asked respondents, “In the Senate runoff race between Jon Ossoff and David Perdue, which candidate do you support?”

Fifty percent chose Ossoff, 43 percent chose Perdue, and seven percent indicated that they remain undecided. According to the survey, Ossoff also has an edge among undecided voters, 53 percent to the incumbent senator’s 45 percent:

When asked the same question on the race between Warnock and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), 53 percent chose Warnock, while Loeffler gathered 44 percent support with three percent remaining undecided. Like Ossoff, Warnock carries the edge among undecided voters, 54 percent to Loeffler’s 45 percent.

Both of the Democrats’ leads are outside the survey’s +/- 4.4 percent margin of error.

Per the survey’s summary:

Given that the poll numbers in both U.S. Senate races are almost identical, there are some common threads that can be discussed: (1) both Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff have nearly unanimous black support, (2) both Democrats have double digit leads among those with a racial classification of “other” (which includes Asians and Hispanics), and (3) both Democrats are garnering the support of one third of white respondents – Jon Ossoff is getting 40% of the white vote in Cobb and Gwinnett Counties (43% support Warnock), while in the “core counties” of Clayton, DeKalb, and Fulton, both Ossoff and Warnock are getting 55% of the white vote. Even in the central and south Georgia media markets, 33% of white voters are supporting Warnock while 36% are supporting Ossoff.

The survey’s summary noted that GOP Senate candidates should be concerned that Democrats are going into Election Day with a “massive lead from those voting (or planning to vote) before Election Day”:

Mail in voters are 67-31% for Ossoff/69-29% for Warnock, while advance voters are 55-44% for Ossoff/55-45% for Warnock. These numbers mean that even Page 3 of 14 though the poll numbers show massive Perdue/Loeffler leads among Election Day voters, they’ll need that vote to be substantially more robust than it was in November, when only 20% of the electorate voted on Election Day.

The survey coincides with a Trafalgar Group survey released on Tuesday, which showed Democrats holding a slight edge, though both of their leads were within the survey’s margin of error, indicating a statistical tie:

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