Talk Elections

Clinton - 44%
Trump - 40%

Clinton - 41%
Trump - 38%
Johnson - 11%
Stein - 2%

Source (http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2016/08/05/ajc-poll-hillary-clinton-has-slim-lead-over-donald-trump-in-georgia/)

Crosstabs (https://cmgajcpolitics.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/cross.pdf)

Give this state the $10 million!

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Clinton winning independents, who trend pretty conservative, in Georgia by 5 (44/39)

Probably the best pollster for Georgia. They nailed the presidential races in 2008 and 2012, and in 2014, when most were saying a close race, they gave Perdue a decent lead.

In two-way, she's leading among less than college!

**They don't break that out racially though... Whites generally have higher educational attainment.

You know what, I realized that too. Maybe I shouldn't get too excited about that.

In 2012, Romney led all the Georgia polls by at least 8
In 2008, Obama had a 1 point lead in one Georgia poll. McCain led the other 25 polls taken after the conventions

:O

I wonder...

Johnson leads Trump in Blacks, 5% to 2%.

She's trailing whites by 40 when Dems usually trail by 50. SurveyUSA and Landmark has confirmed this 40 point margin. If she can get 30% of whites, it's definitely game over.

African-Americans are 30% of the vote and she'll get 90% of that
Hispanics are 5% of the vote and she'll get 75% of that

So that gives her around 32% of the overall state vote. If she gets 30% of whites that would give her just over 50%.

It is not game over but those numbers make it shockingly Lean D

I doubt Gary Johnson will get 10, but 3 is plausible, so the winner would need just 48.5.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/romney-tops-obama-in-georgia-as-economy-dominates-/nScjq/
http://www.ajc.com/news/national/georgia-statewide-poll/

Interesting when compared to 2012.

The ATL Exurbs then were 35-61 Obama-Romney, now 33-51 Clinton-Trump.
The ATL Metro was 63-32 for Obama, now 69-20.
SE GA was 41-50 Obama-Romney, now 44-34 Clinton-Trump.
SW GA was 50-45 Obama-Romney, now tied (so 1 area Trump has strength in, or just noise).

College vote was 44-52 Obama-Romney, now flipped 47-36 Clinton-Trump.

http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/results/states/exitpolls/georgia.html
http://www.cnn.com/election/2014/results/state/GA/senate/

She'll probably get more. Obama got 98% in 2008 and Nunn got 92% in 2014. Maybe 95%+, at least with polls showing Trump getting 1% of the black vote.

Okay, Hillary definitely needs to invest in this state now that she has a real chance at winning it. 

IT'S HAPPENING

Trump's collapsing! It's beautiful!

Pollster has an A- from 538, fwiw.

Here's my projection of what the map will look like if Hillary Clinton is barely winning Georgia.

Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump

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I can't say who wins Utah after Donald Trump has bungled the usual Republican support -- a write-in campaign for Mitt Romney?

Texas goes D before any of the states of the arc of states (LA, AR, TN, KY, WV) that Bill Clinton won twice that Obama got clobbered in twice. If educated white suburbanites in Greater Atlanta are going to Clinton in Texas, they are doing so in Texas, too. But I can't assure anyone that Republicans will win in the High Plains states.

Hey buddy go check out that NH poll...

It's definitely in play, they just need to put in a little investment. If Trump is going all in in PA, OH and FL, might as well try to expand the map to GA and AZ.

An AJC poll in August shows a Democrat leading? No way! Georgia is doomed I tell you. Doomed.

Georgia is the New Jersey of the South. This always happens, just for the Democrats instead of the Republicans. Then reality sets in.  But enjoy it for a few weeks, red avatars.

False. Democrats don't show leads in August in Georgia and Republicans never show 4 point leads in NJ.

Exactly. There is no Democratic parallel to Georgia. I thought it would be like Virginia 2004 this year, but it's looking more like 2008 the closer we get.

Looks like Seriously? is sweating like a dog that his state could vote for the red avatar party.

No. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/ga/georgia_romney_vs_obama-2150.html

If you look, you'll see the closest the Obama got was R+3 in March 2011. In fact, most Georgia polls hit the final margin pretty well (even underestimating Obama).

Except in the last two elections (2008 and 2012) there were 29 post-convention polls taken of Georgia (25 in 2008 and 4 in 2012) and the Republican led in 28 of those 29, with the only Dem lead being Obama +1 in 2008

This time around we have three post-convention polls; one showing Trump +4, one showing a tie and now one showing Clinton +4. Do the Republicans hold Georgia? In the end I think they will, but the state is unquestionably in peril due to Trump

Not sure I buy this but who cares at this point.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/ga/georgia_romney_vs_obama-2150.html

Please point how this "always happens", because the AJC had him up 8 when the polled in 2012, and everyone except PPP had Romney up at least 7 in 2012.

I wasn't just talking about the 2012 POTUS race.

Tell that to Govenor Jason Carter or Senator Michelle Nunn.

Yeah, Governor Jason Carter agrees with you. As does Senator Michelle Nunn.

Congrats! You have a lead in August after your convention. I'm sweating like a pig.

Do you really think that I don't know politics in this state like the back of my  hand?

Yes.

I would expect you to know that a Presidential race is not a Senatorial or Governor race, but I think that it may be asking to much of you.  

You think the 2014 electorate and the 2016 electorate are going to be the exact same? Have you ever wondered why Republicans do better in off-year elections?

I'm not saying this is the year GA flips, but you'd be surprised at how many people in my state sounded just like you in 2008.

Do I think the electorate will be the same? Of course not.

Do I think Georgia polls will be Democrat friendly until October or November? Absolutely. They almost always are.

The meme goes.. Democrat has a chance.. Democrat is going to win.. Then Lucy yanks the football and the Republican exceeds expectations and wins by a larger margin than expected. As I said, ask Senator Michelle Nunn.

You could use that argument to dismiss polls in most states as Republicans all over the country outperformed their polling in 2014. 

Now, clearly Hillary will have to win by a pretty solid margin nationally to take Georgia.  If she ends up winning by 3-5 points, then she's going to fall short.  But a 7-9 point national margin is where things get very interesting in Georgia.

As do I. And we both know that Carter and Nunn basically matched Obama's 2012 performance among a historically diverse presidential year electorate with a much older, much whiter midterm year electorate, in what turned out to be one of the worst midterm years for Democrats in recent political history.

I would expect you to recognize polling patterns in a state, but that would be asking too much of you.

I agree with Seriously? to the extent that Georgia shouldn't be considered Leans D or even Tossup yet. It's still a healthy Leans R, because most undecided voters typically skew Republican. Libertarians typically do relatively well here, and it's not clear Clinton can turn out the Obama coalition enough to compensate for the redneck Trump vote. But Georgia is no lock for Trump, and money spent defending Georgia is money that can't be spent attacking Pennsylvania.

True, Romney was leading all polls by at least high-single digits in 2012 and McCain led all post-convention polls in 2008. Considering these polling patterns, Mr. Drumpf is in deep trouble. Even if he wins GA by a small margin, it’s bad sign for the national trend. Unless he carries GA decisively (meaning by more than around seven points), he’s supposed to lose general election by a larger margin than Romney.

Except for the fact that 2012 Georgia polls were R friendly, and you seem to be ignoring that and pointing to midterms. Yes, they may have had a D bias in 2014, but 2016 it's a different election (a presidential election), so 2012 polls would probably be a more accurate representation of this year's polling bias. And as for this specific pollster's history, it did not predict a Carter or Nunn victory.

Clinton should invest in Georgia.

I am going to be cautiously optimistic and say that this still slightly leans R, but Clinton should invest here.

I just know how this state works.

With that said, I would look at any poll right after the DNC (or RNC for that matter) with anything other than the requisite amount of healthy skepticism.

Is it possible that Hillary! leads Georgia on August 5? Yes. Is it likely that lead will hold? No.

Sure. And AZ as well. Force Drumpf to use his few resources on defense. If he loses one of them, he’s done no matter what happens in FL, OH or PA (which would likely be won by Hillary in such a case). She should also attempt to win as big as possible.

Just as much as your hero knows about foreign policy?

Why Idaho?

Obama never led in Georgia in 2012 and only led a single poll in 2008. So not really.

I just saw a Georgia poll with Hillary ahead and I...

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I'm aware that this is part of her bounce, but Trump has obviously hurt himself, and there's no indication that he'll tone down on his crap.

There a few factors to remember here; Georgia has a plurality of college educated whites, there is a sizable black electorate and more Hispanic voters have registered this year. The Hispanic vote is not huge, but it could make a big difference in a close race. If Trump is losing college educated whites, his chances in Georgia are not good.

http://m.ajc.com/news/news/romney-tops-obama-in-georgia-as-economy-dominates-/nScjq/

Fixed now.

The biggest question is which way the many undecides will swing, especially in the ATL exurbs, and most Johnson voters who'll inevitably peel off as the election nears (sorry for the reality check Atlas :(). That probably bodes well for Trump. Though since the race doesn't require a runoff if no one gets a majority , unlike governor and senate races, Hillary has a decent chance of pulling out the plurality.

Why can't the election be tomorrow?

Indeed. Aging suburban sprawl + increasing diversity is tipping a Republican state to the Democrats, just like New Jersey 20 years ago.

I'll say one thing .... out of all possible stories/issues that get under Seriously's skin, this is the number 1 thing that makes his head itch the most.
Hopefully, we continue to see more Clinton leading polls in Georgia.

Just a matter of time.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ga/georgia_trump_vs_clinton-5741.html

Landmark's 7/24 poll Trump +2
Landmark's 7/31 poll was a tie.

Uh, I hate to actually give any credence to SERIOUSLY? or whatever, but there is a grain of precedent for this: 2014. Carter (and to a lesser extent, Nunn) both had surges  in July/August, with Carter's surge in late July being quite massive in polling for some time - multiple polls showed him up by 7-8 points (this was largely due to Deal's scandals, if I recall correctly). In the end, it faded and Carter was only up in a small fraction in all of the polls after that.

If this poll is correct, then there is some optimism: Clinton doing well with the groups that tend to break 2:1 or 3:1 Republican at the end. However, there's 9 percentage points more potential Trump support at the end of the day in the four-way than Clinton support (and 16% undecided in the head-to-head). A lot can change.

^^^ But in the meantime...

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The Atlanta exurb counties are reliably Republican. I highly doubt that the undecideds there go to Clinton. Those voters are more likely to be blue collar than white collar.

And ProudModerate, nothing is getting under my skin. The numbers are what they are. But you are at peak Hillary! right now. If she's up +9 nationally, she could have a lead in Georgia. But I digress. These numbers will come back to normal in the weeks and months to come.

That's entirely possible. But it's also possible that this is the beginning of the end for Trump, and that Clinton will be up 15-18 by election day. We just have to wait and see.

If this is the map, I will be genuinely satisfied. For me, this is the "base map" for what the election result "should" be.

The AJC website has a couple of articles that go into quite a bit of detail on the mechanics of this poll.  As a stats geek, I really like this.

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/how-the-atlanta-journal-constitutions-august-poll-/nsBBy/

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/frequently-asked-questions-about-the-ajc-poll/nsBM5/

I want to see more polls in the next few weeks before I start thinking about this--sort of just like this Clinton bounce overall.

Whether Clinton wins GA or not is largely irrelevant - this state isn't going to be the tipping point. What matters is whether this convinces the campaigns to invest in a red state.

I caution those using 2014 (and seemingly -only- 2014) to debunk the polls this year--2014 was a midterm, midterms have lower turnout, and that always favors the Republicans. I don't at the moment think Georgia will flip (it would need to be consistent over a long period of time for me to believe it) but I'm going to be dismissive based on a single year's polls being wrong due in part to low turnout either.

Georgia has a lot of junk pollsters. Kind of like Michigan. I've seen this pattern more than just 2014. It happens over and over again. Republicans get underpolled and rally late.

Georgia doesn't have many pollsters. There are only three prominent and consistently active ones (IA, RS & Landmark). Landmark is mediocre; if anything, Rountree may very well consistently underestimate GOP support in order to scare GAGOP into getting off of their asses. As best I can tell, IA is the only truly garbage-tier pollster. I couldn't believe that they had the gall to publish that one poll in 2012 that showed Romney winning by 20+ points.

As far as the trend goes, 2014 is the only cycle where polling showed a fundamentally different race at one point, but this was a broader phenomenon that we saw throughout the country. The polls in 2008, 2010 and 2012 did not show Democrats ahead at any point (other than the odd, occasional poll - usually early in the cycle). The consistent trend in GA polling is that you basically take 70-75% of the undecideds in polls one to two weeks out and add them to the GOP column. This usually means that a Democrat would need to be up by 3 in late polling in order to have a shot in a presidential election and a bit more in any other election (to avoid run-off territory).

We may be seeing a Trump collapse in the polls or even an overall collapse of the Republican Party. Polls would react to this, and definitely not lead. 

Can Republicans recover? Maybe -- just maybe. But that itself suggests a prediction. Polls indicate how people would vote if the election were to be held today. Of course we do not have snap elections.

I can imagine scenarios in which the Republicans could win the Presidency in a landslide -- but such would suggest that the political cultures that underpin the Blue (Atlas Red) Firewall that reflects political cultures in about twenty states themselves are eroding. An alternative is that the Republicans would have a nominee stronger than the ones that they have had since Reagan or that the Democrats have elected an unusually-weak nominee.   

Huh? Those counties are filled with upper middle-class whites in McMansion developments.

It depends.... Hall County, where several family members live, is filled with poultry processing plants, and although there are McMansion developments, there is a large blue collar component as well and 26% Latino population....

I'm sure there are some other counties in Exurban Atlanta that you could pull up that have a higher chunk of upper-middle class Anglos in McMansions, but its a bit of a generalization to throw all exurban counties into the same chicken pot...

^^^ Yeah, it really depends on which counties you're talking about. If we use this definition (http://www.dailyyonder.com/united-states-rural-urban-and-exurban-counties/2009/03/17/2002/), then they are largely blue-collar for the most part (with notable exceptions in Paulding, Coweta & Carroll, perhaps; Newton is definitely still in transition).

Honestly, I think many definitions of exurban/suburban for the broader ATL metro are overextended; many exurban counties are in fact still quite rural in nature, and many urban counties (if you dare to use the classification "suburban" alongside the other three) are really suburban in nature.

So does anyone know what the AJC defines as "Metro Atlanta" versus "Atlanta Exurbs"?

You have so many counties that are part of the SMSA, but in order to get these numbers my thought would be that Hillary is well exceeding Obama '08 numbers in Fulton, De Kalb, and Clayton.

Narrowly ahead in Gwinnett, close to even in Cobb/Henry and running significantly better than Obama in "Exurban Atlanta".

One of the other interesting things in the crosstabs indicate a (44-34 Clinton) lead in SE Georgia.... Maybe my math is all wrong but I'm trying to figure out that is possible, unless Hillary has dramatically improved numbers of rural Whites in SE GA.

Some time ago, I tried to reconstruct ABT SRBI's regional boundaries based on their cross tabs and population distributions throughout the state (first map). The map below was the closest I could come up with, with the original not splitting the "Exurbs" and "Metro". As far as population and geographic boundaries balanced were concerned, these boundaries made the most sense.

However, I went ahead and tried to break what I previously had as "Metro" (half of the state) into the two equally-sized groups of "Exurb" and "Metro" (second map). They must split some counties, or else the crosstab proportions combined with geographic common-sense just wouldn't make any sense.

The biggest difference I'm noticing between 2008 & this poll is in the Southeast: those numbers might be a bit unbelievable in terms of the difference. The rest more or less makes sense given the nature of the race.

In almost every area in the second map, Clinton is currently polling roughly where Obama finished in 2008, with Trump being 10 points below McCain's final total (with the exception of SE).

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Trump's not going all in in Pennsylvania. He has virtually no campaign in the state.

I'll go full useless anecdote on you and mention that my father lives in my hometown in rural Berks County (just outside of "the collar") and he isn't seeing anything from Trump's campaign, but getting a lot of Hillary calls. Nor is he hearing a noticeable difference in % of supporters at his blue collar factory than with any other GOPer. Probably useless info though.

Well he has to go all in for PA with CO and VA off the board and NV soon to join them

Oh I agree with you. He's not winning without PA. I'm just passing along what I'm hearing. Passion is up amongst WCWs, but I haven't heard that %s are.

Good call, Adam. Hillary's also several points behind Obama's number's in the SW, but otherwise spot on. I'm guessing the small picture is subsample size MoE. The big picture appears there are a lot of traditionally Republican voters who currently can't stomach voting for Trump. That would indicate they've probably a better chance for coming home to Trump rather than holding their nose and voting for Hillary.

Georgia can be won by Clinton if:

1. The unregistered black voters in the state are registered and they vote for Clinton

2. The suburbs of Atlanta, Macon, Savannah (which have highly educated voters, vote for Clinton. They would have voted for Rubio, Kasich, or Cruz, but Trump is too boisterous for them.

I think you can reconstruct it from this, page 44
http://www.myajc.com/oct-2014-poll/
http://alt.coxnewsweb.com/ajc/_newsapps/2014/pollOctober2014/data/30162_GA_Poll_Banner_FINAL.pdf

For exurbs, I got Bartow, Carroll, Cherokee, Cobb (???), Fayette, Forsyth, Gwinnett (???), Newton, Paulding

Metro ATL: Henry ???, Rockdale, Fulton, Douglas, Dekalb, Clayton

I don't know if these groups are the same, they don't have the same detail in the new tab.

^^^ OK, I adjusted my original estimates and redid what is apparently their exact boundaries. A couple of counties (like Baldwin) were not in those crosstabs and with them being on the boundary or 2 or more regions, I just put them in the region that made the most sense. Some of those boundaries they have are stupid, in my opinion. Nevertheless, the 2008 numbers in these regions compared to what I tried to guestimate were hardly different (save for the exurbs).
 
At any rate, here are the boundaries and the results:

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The Southeast (particularly along the coast) is the most "moderate" portion of Georgia in terms of the aggregate of political attitudes; everywhere else that seems moderate based on election results is merely the result of a roughly split, very polarized electorate. Because of this, it's not a huge shock to see Clinton performing better here in the poll relative to 2008 (based on margin) than in any other area.

Overall, though, Clinton's margins relative to Obama's in 2008 are more improved in southern Georgia than in northern Georgia, and this isn't necessarily surprising. When people talk about white voters "coming home" and the old Dixiecrats that might still be out there, they are disproportionately going to be in South Georgia (and perhaps even more so in that SE region, although they'll be further inland/in the Onion Belt rather than along the coast; think Barrow's CD).

You also see the highest number of undecideds in these two regions (20% in "Southwest" & "Southeast" combined, compared to 13% in the other three regions combined), and that very well may be due to the older white voters who are contemplating returning to the fold and going back to their old ways instead of instinctively opposing Democrats like they have under Obama. At the end of the day, though, they may very well vote how they did in 2008/2012; it's definitely normal in Georgia for the bulk of undecideds to pour into the GOP at the last minute, but seeing a higher-than-average share of them clustered in this part of the state gives me a bit of hope.

At the end of the day, though, this could just be funny margins of error and the result of small sample sizes in this part of the state.

Wouldn't the geographic categories be based on telephone area codes?

They don't appear to be, since every region overlaps with at least three area codes (except for North, which is wholly contained within 2; its 2 are also represented in SE & SW). They're likely just using a voter file and randomly sampling it down to (at least somehow accurately) represent each county/area.

Excellent analysis and breakdown and we will need to see more polls out of Georgia with regional breakdowns, but it does seem that maybe Hillary does have some appeal with White rural voters in SW and SE Georgia that can bring some of these ancestral Democratic voters back home.

If so, combined with increased performance in Metro Atlanta, than Georgia could likely vote Democrat in November, even with the 3rd Party vote...

If Clinton wins Georgia, it won't help Jim Barksdale, who is a underdog Democrat running against Johnny Isakson. I could see Clinton/Isakson split ticket voters. Can anyone else here see that, or can underdog Barksdale cause trouble for Isakson?

If Kasim Reed or Jason Carter had ran this year for Senate, Isakson would be in a lot of trouble.

He'll underperform her by 2-3 points, I'm thinking...which is about as much of a difference that can exist at this point between any two (white) statewide Democratic candidates who are running in the same election in polarized, inelastic GA. If it were Chambliss, it might be a different story - he was never really all that liked - but Isakson in particular is a different story.

I agree.  Barksdale's just not a good enough candidate, and Isakson should win handily.  Even Roy Barnes and Sam Nunn have contributed to Isakson's campaign.  With one of the two you mentioned, or perhaps if Michelle Nunn had run this year instead of 2014, this race would have been quite interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Georgia,_2010
Isakson won by 19 in 2010, when Nathan Deal only won by 10 in his governor race. Something of an incumbency factor, plus the fact that he's not a total tea partier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_gubernatorial_election,_2010