Leading Off:
• GA-Sen, Gov: On Wednesday, SurveyUSA gave Democrat Michelle Nunn her best poll in a long time. The group has her up by a small 48-45 margin over Republican David Perdue, up from Perdue’s 46-45 edge a week before.
What’s more important is that Nunn is closer to winning the majority of the vote she needs to avoid a runoff in January. As we’ve noted in the past, Democratic turnout tends to disproportionality drop in irregularity-scheduled elections and it may be tough for Nunn to win if this goes into overtime. With Libertarian Amanda Swafford taking 3 percent there are only about 4 percent undecided, so Nunn doesn’t have a lot of room for error to get to 50 percent plus one vote.
This is just one poll, and other pollsters still show Nunn further away from 50 percent. In the last week Landmark, which used to be Nunn’s best pollster, showed her moving in the wrong direction. However, both national parties have recently upped their spending in the Peach State. The DSCC reportedly has unreleased polls showing Nunn close to the majority she needs. We’ll see if other public polls show Nunn closing in on 50 percent or if this turns out to be an outlier.
SurveyUSA also took a look at the gubernatorial race and finds Republican Gov. Nathan Deal and Democrat Jason Carter tied at 46 percent each. Libertarian Andrew Hunt takes 4 percent, leaving only 4 percent undecided in this survey. On one hand, this is better than the 46-44 Deal lead they recently found. Still, Carter looks far from the majority he would also need to avoid a runoff (the gubernatorial runoff would be in December). Most other polls also have both candidates far from a majority, and right now it’s hard to see either man winning outright in November.
