Landmark poll: Nathan Deal and Jason Carter still tied after Tuesday debate

Another poll of the Georgia gubeatorial race, by Landmark Communications for WSBTV released Friday evening, shows a tie between Republican Goveor Nathan Deal and Democratic state Sen. Jason Carter, each getting 45 percent of the vote.  

The survey included 1000 likely Georgia voters and has a +/- 3 percent margin of error; Libertarian Andrew Hunt has 5 percent of support and there are 5 percent of undecided voters. 

Carter gets a lot of help in this race from a long-standing ethics probe related to Deal. The Goveor repeatedly stated that he’s not violated ethics regulations and has not been involved in any cover-up, but the investigation is ongoing.  

In the debate last Tuesday, the Democrat seemed inexperienced and not always able to effectively respond to Deal’s attacks.  The InsiderAdvantage analyst Matt Towery said this about their exchanges:

”Nathan Deal absolutely dominated his debate. Jason Carter seemed haltingly and at times painfully unable to land strong debating points against Deal. Even Libertarian Andrew Hunt seemed to have a stronger delivery than Carter.

Carter seemed to speak about most issues in very general terms, without providing any details. But the Landmark poll came out after the debate, and it looks like Deal hasn’t moved up despite his stellar performance on Tuesday. Perhaps the brief questioning about the ethics investigation during the debate reminded voters about Deal’s constant troubles in that area. Deal, after all, was also accused of ethics violations when he was a congressman in Washington.