Brian Kemp Is Polling Four Times Higher Than Herschel Walker with Black Voters

The latest poll of likely voters in Georgia, published this morning by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Georgia News Collaborative, shows Republican incumbent Brian Kemp a comfortable ten points ahead of his Democratic challenger, Stacey Abrams, in the 2022 governor’s race. “U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker remain in a neck-and-neck race for the state’s wildly competitive Senate seat,” the AJC reports, although “the poll offers only a partial glimpse of the impact of reports that Walker paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009 despite his vows to ban the procedure,” given that “only a handful of responses were collected after the publication of the allegations, which Walker has denied.”

But things get more interesting when you actually dig into the demographic details. Ryan Girdusky breaks it down:

According to this poll, Herschel Walker, who is black, is polling at just two percent with likely black voters in Georgia, while Brian Kemp, who is white, is polling at eight percent with the same demographic. Neither is a particularly strong showing, to be sure — black voters are one of the most reliably Democratic voting blocs in America — but it’s still a remarkable statistic, given that we’re controlling for party here: The white Republican governor is 400 percent more popular with black voters than the black Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate.

Some of that may have less to do with the individual strengths and weaknesses of Kemp and Walker, and more to do with the individual strengths and weaknesses of their Democratic opponents. The AJC writes:

The results reinforced a trend of lagging support among Black voters that has dogged Abrams’ campaign. It shows that 81% of Black voters back the Democrat, 8% support Kemp and 10% are undecided. Strategists say Abrams must be at least 10 points higher among Black voters, the most reliable Democratic constituency. . . . Warnock, the state’s first Black U.S. senator, outperformed Abrams among African American voters with 89% of the vote. That’s a 12-point gain compared with the last UGA poll in September, while Abrams’ support in the demographic grew by about 2 percentage points.

Most black voters will probably still come home to Abrams on Election Day. (Republicans have certainly come home to Kemp: The Georgia governor’s “approval rating hit 54%, fueled by broad backing from conservatives and older Georgians,” the AJC reported. “It’s the latest poll that shows Kemp has largely consolidated the Republican base after humbling a Donald Trump-backed opponent in the May GOP primary”). But I would love to meet Georgia’s small but fascinatingly heterodox cohort of black Kemp-Warnock voters. As AJC notes: 

As with other recent surveys, the poll indicated a significant number of voters plan to split the vote between both parties. About 9% of Kemp’s voters back Warnock, and an additional 5% say they’ll vote for Oliver. About 4% are undecided. By contrast, only 1% of Abrams’ voters back Walker.

“I just feel like Raphael Warnock is a better candidate, even though he’s going to caucus with the Democrats,” said Blake Briese, a financial adviser in Fulton County who plans to back Kemp in the governor’s race. He’s concerned Walker, a former football star, isn’t “cut out for the task.”

I wouldn’t say nine percent is all that significant, but it’s non-negligible — and certainly enough to swing a tight race.