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Final InsiderAdvantage/Poll Position Poll: Dead heat in Georgia

November 3, 2008 — Stay logged in to InsiderAdvantage Tuesday night for the earliest projections on major races. If you aren’t a subscriber, sign up today.  

(11/3/08) On the eve of a long, expensive, groundbreaking and often surprising election, the presidential race is nip-and-tuck in a Peach State that turns out to be not quite as thoroughly red as many people thought, and the U.S. Senate race will continue for another four weeks into a runoff.

Those are the findings from the latest InsiderAdvantage / Poll Position survey, conducted Sunday night. Each poll consisted of responses from 512 registered, likely voters. African-Americans were assumed to constitute 30 percent of the vote. The polls have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.

Presidential

McCain, 48 percent
Obama, 47 percent
Barr, 2 percent
Other, 1 percent

Undecided, 2 percent.

U.S. Senate

Saxby Chambliss, 48 percent

Jim Martin, 43 percent

Allen Buckley, 2 percent
Undecided, 7 percent

Insider’s Matt Towery on the presidential results:

“The percentage of the overall African-American vote on election day will likely be 30 percent or higher. How do we know this? First, an analysis of the counties where we have seen the most vigorous early voting runs contrary to conventional wisdom – that early voting has been primarily African-American. Some of the most vigorous early voting has been in extreme north Georgia, where there is virtually no African-American population. Rabun County, for example, has very few African-American voters, yet it was one of the highest in early voter turnout. An analysis around the state shows that trend is not unusual. In areas like Fulton, DeKalb, Richmond, Chatham and Muscogee, which have an extremely high percentage of African-American voters, they have yet to even produce the majority of their African-American vote. And with the African-American vote at 35 percent at the conclusion of early voting, that percentage, in our judgment, will drop – but nowhere near to 26 percent and very likely above 30 percent.

“McCain will win Georgia if the African-American turnout is less than 32 percent of the overall vote and if Obama’s percentage of the white vote is 26 percent or less. If the turnout for African-Americans is at or above 32 percent or if Obama carries, say, 28 percent of the white vote, then Obama wins. So this will be a nip-and-tuck race. It will not be a 7-point blow out.

“What we’ll be watching early on is returns from smaller counties which will be heavily McCain to see if McCain is performing at the levels he needs to carry the state. It won’t be until late in the evening – and, likely, the next day – that the contest will tighten up and become a race.”

“Georgia has some potential of going Obama while Florida and North Carolina, ironically, could end up slipping into the McCain column. Florida notoriously over-polls Democrats. We saw it in the 2004 race with Kerry and Bush and in other races. Second, both Florida and North Carolina lack what Georgia has – an extremely high black voting age population. Obama has to pull off a much higher white vote in those two states to accomplish what he’s trying to accomplish in Georgia. So in a sense, from the beginning of the night when we start counting votes, Obama may have a better shot in Georgia.”

Towery said the scope of the problem for the Republican presidential candidate is even clearer in a poll conducted just within the 6^th congressional district. It had a smaller sample size – 344 – and a greater margin of error – plus or minus 6 percent.

While that poll showed Republican Rep. Tom Price at 60 percent and Democratic challenger Bill Jones at 33 percent, it showed McCain at 55 percent but Obama at 42 percent.

More significantly, the 6^th District poll also shows Obama pulling 35 percent of the white vote and 47 percent of the female vote.

“That is very bad news for John McCain and Republicans in general to have a district so overwhelmingly Republican in which Obama is polling 42 percent,” said Towery. “It  also suggests that the white vote may be closer than we expect. If that’s indicative of the white vote in the more populated areas that surround metro Atlanta, I’m not sure there’s enough white vote in the rural areas to bring Obama below 28 percent.

“I still think McCain is likely to win Georgia by a smidgeon but if my gut is right and blacks are voting beyond 30 percent, then he’s a dead duck.”

Towery on the U.S. Senate race:

“I don’t see any way Martin wins it straight up, but if the African-American vote is as robust as I believe it’s going to be, then you’ll see a runoff.

“The largest percentage of undecided voters, by far, are black voters. That’s not unusual in a U.S Senate race, and it will likely come up to the level we have seen for Obama – the 90^th percentile level. That would tighten the race up a bit. The other undecided group is female voters, who are pretty much evenly split.

“This race is a doozy. Martin has not risen at all in our polling recently and Chambliss has, which shows that Chambliss has begun to at least consolidate his base and remind people he is a U.S. senator, and has raised Martin’s negatives.”

The results in the latest Chambliss-Martin survey, like the presidential survey, are modeled on a 30 percent African-American turnout. “Anything over 30 percent would virtually guarantee a runoff. This is going to be a very tight race.”