Earlier this week, incumbent Senate Democrat Raphael Warnock of Georgia received what appeared to be good news, when Quinnipiac’s new poll showed him ahead of Republican Herschel Walker, 52 percent to 46 percent.
The thing is, back in 2020, Quinnipiac’s final poll in Georgia, conducted in mid October, showed Biden ahead by seven points; Jon Ossoff ahead of incumbent Senator David Perdue by six points, 51 percent to 45 percent; and Warnock well ahead in a three-way race, with 41 percent against Republican Doug Collins (22 percent) and Republican Kelly Loeffler (20 percent).
Biden won Georgia by three-tenths of a percentage point, and both Ossoff and Warnock went to runoffs. On Election Day, Purdue finished with 49.7 percent, Ossoff finished with 47.9 percent. Warnock finished with 32.9 percent, Loeffler with 25.9 percent, and Collins with 20 percent; only Warnock and Loeffler advanced to the runoff.
In other words, Quinnipiac’s final look at the Georgia electorate included too many Democratic-leaning demographics and too few Republican-leaning demographics. (This may well reflect that Republican-leaning demographics are less likely to answer the phone and answer questions from a pollster.) A similar phenomenon was at work next door in South Carolina, where, three times, Quinnipiac’s surveys showed a tied race between incumbent Republican senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic challenger Jaime Harrison. On election day, Graham won, 55 percent to 44 percent. Sometimes, Quinnipiac just misses in a southern state . . . by quite a bit.
Maybe Quinnipiac has improved its sense of which Georgians are actually going to vote in November. This poll comes out to 33 percent self-identified Republicans, 33 percent self-identified Democrats, and 26 percent self-identified independents. The other 7 percent were other, didn’t know, didn’t say, or refused to answer.
In the 2020 exit polls, 38 percent of Georgia voters identified as Republican, 34 percent identified as Democrat, and 28 percent identified as independent. In the 2018 exit polls, 33 percent of Georgia voters identified as Republican, 37 percent identified as Democrat, and 30 percent identified as independent.
This new poll showing Warnock up is an outlier compared to other recent polls; the last polls showing the Democrat with a comparable lead were in mid t0 late July.
The safer bet is that Georgia’s Senate race is still very close — a virtual coin flip between Warnock and Walker.