A new Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll shows Republican Rick Jackson and Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms are in a virtual dead heat.
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Channel 2’s Richard Elliot says this race may hinge on independents, with Jackson and Bottoms virtually tied two weeks out from Election Day.
With a 3% margin of error, Jackson is at 46% while Bottoms is at 45% and 8% of voters remain undecided.
UGA political science professor Charles Bullock wonders if President Donald Trump’s low polling numbers in Georgia are having a direct impact on this race and others.
“Trump is upside down and has been upside down in terms of his approval ratings in this state,” Bullock said. “So while Trump is good at mobilizing Republican votes, he’s also very effective at mobilizing Democratic votes.”
The poll also shows Bottoms with a slight advantage with independent voters.
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Emory University political scientist Andra Gillespie believes the campaigns will focus on them but more importantly on turning out their bases.
“It’s going to be whether or not the campaigns, all of them, have enough staff deployed all over the state and enough volunteers so that they can talk to as many voters as they can,” Gillespie said.
The Tucker library early voting location in DeKalb was busy Tuesday.
Many voters there said they’d already voted and they were ready for it to end.
“There’s a lot of negativity and falsehoods,” Beth Pirnstill said.
“I just hate all this very negative, ugly visuals we get all the time. So that’s my big thing,” George Clower said.
Channel 2 Action News reached out to both campaigns for comment but only heard back from the Bottoms campaign.
Her campaign manager said, “Bottoms has the momentum in this race and she is in a position to win it with an aggressive grassroots effort over the next 14 days.”
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