InsiderAdvantage/WSB-TV Poll

Huge Poll Taken Sunday Night Shows Handel Continues To Surge

(7/19/20) Karen Handel continues to surge in the Republican race for governor, according to the latest InsiderAdvantage/WSB-TV poll conducted Sunday night in our largest ever one-night sample. John Oxendine, Nathan Deal and Eric Johnson continue to battle for the second berth in the runoff.

The survey was conducted among 1,619 registered voters who said they either have or are likely to vote in the Republican primary. It was weighted for age, race and gender, and has a margin of error of 2.3 percentage points.

The results:

Handel, 28%
Deal, 17%
Johnson, 14%
Oxendine, 13%
Chapman, 6%
McBerry, 3%
Putnam, 0%
Undecided, 19%

InsiderAdvantage CEO and political analyst Matt Towery:

“With turnout apparently shaping up to be moderate to light on Tuesday, the combination of a geographical political base and an appeal to those who most traditionally vote in Republican primaries are the two critical elements in this primary. Several points to consider:

* While early voting (which was taken into account in our poll) makes a contest more difficult to survey, it is reasonable to assume that the high numbers of undecideds (which is typical for our surveys because of stringent screening) are mainly respondents who say that they are likely to vote but many of whom will not. This means that the battle between Deal, Johnson and Oxendine for second place may be razor thin. Deal’s edge, if he indeed has one, appears to be coming from the fact that he has a solid geographical base of support in a politically active northeast Georgia.

* Johnson is virtually tied with Deal when we look at the most hard-core of Republican voters. This may mean a very tight battle between these two candidates.

* Oxendine’s best chance probably won’t come at the ballot box on Tuesday but when early votes are reported in the mix. It is very difficult to know if this will hand him an advantage, given that many of the counties where Handel is running strong tend to be the largest source of early votes.

* Handel’s rise did not occur simply because of the Sarah Palin endorsement. Our InsiderAdvantage poll of several weeks ago showed Handel surging towards first place and Oxendine dropping substantially. That was prior to the Palin endorsement. The Palin endorsement obviously added fuel to the fire, lifting her to first place last week in our survey and into a tie with Nathan Deal in the Rasmussen poll of last week.

* A major word of caution to those who watch election returns: the early results will likely not reflect Handel’s front-runner status. These will be smaller counties which report earlier. Handel’s strength comes from larger counties such as Fulton and Cobb, both of which are notoriously late in reporting their numbers.

Finally, on the Democratic side, there is no reason to believe that Roy Barnes will be in a runoff. However, the race may appear closer until DeKalb County reports. That’s another county notorious for reporting late in the evening.

This has been a difficult race for all of the pollsters because of the lack of enthusiasm among voters. In 2002, while polling for a different television station, we were the only firm to show Roy Barnes and Sonny Perdue statistically tied in their contest. That race easily could have broken in either direction but it illustrates how polling is a mixture of science and art and how results on election day can often be tricky. Most pollsters showed Barnes winning by 5 or more points. Anything can happen in this business.