Landmark poll shows tie in Georgia Senate race

A new poll by Landmark Communications for WSBTV, released Friday afteoon, shows what all the other polls show: the race for U.S. Senate seat in Georgia is in a tie, with Republican David Perdue and Democrats Michelle Nunn each getting 46 percent of the vote.  Libertarian Amanda Swafford is at 4 percent and so are the undecided.

The Landmark survey of 1000 likely Georgia voters has a +/- 3 percent margin of error. WSBTV didn't provide the dates when the poll was conducted, but it likely took place after the Tuesday debates in Perry, Georgia. Some analysts thought Nunn did suprisingly well at the debate, and this poll shows some movement comparing to last week when she was four points behind Perdue according to an InsiderAdvantage poll. 

Most significantly, Nunn is winning the female vote by ”double digits, according to a report by WSBTV. Women are supposed to be the majority vote this year in Georgia.

Shortly after the poll came out, Nunn’s fundraising emails proclaimed that ”this race couldn’t be any closer. In reality, for the race to be an actual tie, the Democrat would have to be up at least 2-3 points, just to make up for some of the Libertarian vote that is likely to cross over to Perdue in a runoff. 

Neither Perdue nor Nunn poll at 50 percent of the vote needed to win in the general election, so a runoff is almost certain. Considering that the runoff is on Jan. 6, Nunn probably needs a couple more points to make up for a weaker tuout from Democrats.  The January 6^th date works against Nunn, because Democrats rely more on younger voters who might not be in town in the first week of January. Universities and many schools around the state don’t open until the following week, so younger families, students and faculty might still be traveling. The older voters don’t leave town nearly as much, and are a very reliable Republican base in Georgia.