Insider Advantage Poll--GA Governor: Deal (R) 45% (-4) Barnes (D) 40% (-1) Monds 5%

Is GA Gov headed to a run-off?


10/19/10) The race between Nathan Deal and Roy Barnes has become a closer battle, according to a survey conducted Monday night.

The survey included responses from 507 registered voters who said they were likely to or had voted in the race for governor. It was conducted using InsiderAdvantage’s telephone IVR system and it was weighted for age, race, gender and political affiliation.

It showed the following:

Deal, 45%
Barnes, 40%
Monds, 5%
Undecided, 10%

The margin of error was plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Analysis from IA’s Matt Towery:

“The best way I can characterize this race is that Nathan Deal has been sort of the ‘gentleman candidate’ while Roy Barnes has attacked Deal with a continuing parade of issues. While the Deal campaign has hit back at Barnes, their hits have not been strong enough to date to keep the combination of Barnes’ attacks and ads designed to appeal to white males and females from making the race closer.

“It should be noted that it is very hard to anticipate exactly what level Republicans will turn out in Georgia this year. The poll reflects a substantial Republican edge in its weighting. This edge could actually be higher but currently Georgia does not appear to be a state where there is frenetic Republican activity or enough hot races (such as Florida, Kentucky, California, etc.) to potentially generate the flood of Republicans that might be expected in those states. This makes it very tricky, given the fact that a flood of Republicans and a low Democratic turnout on election day could easily boost Deal to a 50% plus victory.

“Currently, I feel very comfortable with the model which we are using. What basically occurred is Deal dropped among Republican voters to around 76%. Some 7% said they were voting for the Libertarian and nearly 11% said they were undecided. This means that Deal must hit Barnes hard to assure the Republican faithful that he is the candidate that they should vote for. Notice that Barnes did not rise necessarily in the poll. As I have noted before, when elections begin to shift, unsure voters first go to the undecided column and in this case the Libertarian column and basically sit there until they determine whether they want to return to their candidate of choice, vote for the alternative or simply not vote.

“Barnes made progress in other areas in the crosstabs. Deal still leads among Independents, but only by a 45-38 margin, just slightly outside the margin of error. Barnes is slowly creeping up among white voters. He now stands at 26%. The magic number for Barnes is 30% but anything between 27 and 30 could force the race into a runoff if African American voters turn out at a higher than expected level. Other areas where there was movement include men, where Deal has a 46 to 39 lead but a narrower one than in some recent polls. Of greater interest is the female vote, where Deal is at 44% and Barnes at 40% with 12% still undecided.

“It’s my opinion that Barnes is unlikely to win this race straight up with just two weeks to go. It’s not impossible but he is still 10 points away from a win. What could be becoming increasingly possible is a runoff between Deal and Barnes. I fully expect the Libertarian to pull at least 3% and perhaps a little bit higher this year. If Barnes makes a huge effort to turn out the African American vote and Deal fails to hit Barnes in a strong and powerful manner almost immediately, then a runoff could be a possibility. It really boils down to turnout and who is motivated.

“It is my guess that Nathan Deal truly never expected or understood the way a Barnes campaign operates. If he wants to be governor in the first round he will have to take the gloves off and fight for his life. For Barnes the strategy is simple: continue to attack while running separate ads that can appeal to female voters and independents.

“There is still plenty of time for Deal to pull this race off without a runoff but he has serious work to do. One frustration for the Deal campaign has been what appears to be a one-sided media attack on Deal. It’s hard for us to determine whether the Barnes opposition research which is being distributed to various media outlets selectively (see the Roll Call story posted today out of Washington concerning Deal’s use of an airplane) is being embraced by the media while potential stories concerning Barnes are being ignored. However, many media outlets desperately want to balance their stories concerning Deal and Barnes but complain that the stories they are given are sparse and not particularly damaging to Barnes. Since at “InsiderAdvantage it has generally been our policy not to run personal stories about candidates we have basically been left to observe the other media in their revelations. Deal might be smart to attempt to create Republican resentment towards Barnes and the media, whether justified or not. Sometimes that tactic works but in other instances it does no good.

“Should this race go into a runoff it would be impossible to even begin to speculate as to how it would end. Of the two candidates, the most likely to have the best shot of winning straight up on election day is Deal. But this survey shows that Deal has more work to do to avoid a runoff.”
http://insideradvantagegeorgia.com/restricted/2010/October%202010/10-19-10/Governor_Poll101919662.php

scandal.

I can't believe that after everything else, he not only won the primary run-off, he's up by five points. I am getting so damn sick of his putrid commercials. Johnny Issakson's too.