It’s a toss-up race for Georgia’s 16 electoral votes. Four years after the state turned blue for the first time in decades, the presidential race there remains tight. Donald Trump is currently at 51% in the polls, with Kamala Harris just two points behind.
Financial concerns continue to give Trump an advantage, but not as much as they did when Joe Biden was his opponent. Meanwhile, widespread concern about democracy kept Harris competitive. Georgia voters are divided over the recent action by State Election Boardand there are stark partisan divides in confidence in the electoral system, as well as in what should happen after the votes are counted in November.
Economics and finance
Many feel worse off financially than ever before The covid pandemic. About half of the state’s registered voters say Trump’s second term would make them financially better off — the same number as in this poll. spring season. Only a third said they were Harris. While he followed Trump on this measure, he did better than President Biden in the country.
Rising costs are still a top concern across Georgia, with house prices looks especially heavy. Eight out of 10 voters say their income is inadequate inflationand seven in 10 say housing in that part of Georgia is unaffordable. On the latter issue, Harris and Trump appear to have roughly the same amount to help reduce housing costs.
Democracy and elections
As Georgia continues to deal with the fallout from the 2020 election, most voters say the state’s democracy is a major factor in their vote this year. While economic concerns are higher as a factor, most voters feel “very concerned” about whether the U.S. will have a functioning democracy when thinking about the next few years. And this group leans toward Harris.
Until the election in Georgia itself, Democrats are more confident than Republicans that their votes will be properly counted this year. Most Republicans continue to give credence to false claims of widespread fraud in 2020. Four out of 10 Trump voters would prefer that the 2024 Georgia results be challenged and investigated if Harris wins after the votes are counted. Almost all Republicans do not consider Mr. Biden’s victory in 2020 as legitimate.
Democrats are more concerned than Republicans that some Georgia election officials will refuse to certify election results for political reasons.
The State Board of Elections recently voted to require election workers to count ballots on election night this November, in addition to machine counts. Most voters say the new rules will cause delays in finding results. They are further divided on whether to ensure accuracy or reduce the risk of fraud, with views divided by partisanship.
A majority of Democrats feel the board is doing this for political reasons and is intentionally interfering with the election process. Republicans generally feel that the election is safe.
Other issues: guns and abortion
Just a few weeks after the deadliest school shooting in the country’s history, most voters said they were very concerned about the possibility of gun violence in schools. This is especially true for parents across the country, and the majority across party lines are least concerned.
Six in 10 say laws covering gun sales should be made stricter in Georgia. Harris has some advantage on the issue, but neither candidate has garnered the majority of voters who say his policies will reduce gun violence in the country.
Most Georgia voters support legalization abortionbut his views on the details are more complicated.
Six in 10 want abortion in Georgia to be legal in most or all cases. That majority included a third of the Republicans. However, fewer called Georgia’s current law banning abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, “too strict.” Only half of voters statewide said, with four out of 10 saying the law is about right.
And only in half said pregnancy in Georgia has become more dangerous since the overturn of Roe v. Wade. They supported Harris over Trump by 4 to 1, while voters who did not feel comfortable with pregnancy were a mirror image in their voting preferences.
There is agreement across party lines that Harris will try to pass national legislation making abortion legal, but voters are divided on whether Trump will do so. Most Democrats said they would try to impose a national ban, while most Republicans said they would decide to go to states.
Abortion and gun policy matter more to the left than the right today. In fact, they rated the economy as a major factor in Harris supporters’ vote choice.
About half of registered voters say Harris is more liberal than they expect, higher than the four in 10 who say Trump is conservative. However, it backfired among self-described moderates, who were more likely to see Trump as too conservative than Harris as too liberal.
Key constituencies
The Atlanta metro area and its diverse suburbs are key to Democratic victories in the state in 2020 and 2022. Now, Harris is no match for Mr. Biden’s 2020 support in those counties.
And while black voters supported him in large numbers, they did not do so at the same rate as Mr. Biden did four years ago. Harris isn’t doing much better among Black women than Black men, and even a small increase in Black support for her will make the race dead.
Nearly nine out of 10 Black voters think Harris is trying to gain support from Black voters. Only about half said something about Trump — a drop from this spring, when most felt the same.
Trump leads Georgia men by double digits, while Harris leads women more narrowly — producing a gender gap similar to what we’re seeing in 2020.
There is some room for movement in the electorate, but not much. About one out of 10 likely voters in the state profile as persuasable, using enough broad definition unsure of their choice or willing to consider other candidates. That means nine out of 10 are locked in on their choice, and even more likely to stay the way they are now. All of which show the importance of participation, including new registrations.
With mail-in voting in Georgia, Democrats are poised to take a small lead in the coming weeks. These voters are the majority of those who intend to vote by mail. In-person primary elections, which begin in mid-October, remain the most popular way to vote in the state. And those who plan to vote this way are split evenly between Trump and Harris. More voters are going to vote on Election Day this year than in 2020, and as we’ve seen, this group voted for Trump by a wide margin.
Jennifer De Pinto and Fred Backus contributed to this report.
This CBS News/YouGov survey was conducted with a statewide representative sample of 1,441 registered voters in Georgia who were interviewed between September 20-24, 2024. The sample was weighted by gender, age, race, education and geographic region, based on US Census data. and voter files, also for past votes. The margin of error for registered voters is ± 3.5 points.
Toplines
Kabir Khanna
