Gov. Brian Kemp has substantially widened his lead over Stacey Abrams in the Georgia governor’s race, managing to hold a double-digit advantage over his Democratic challenger with less than one week to Election Day, according to recent polling.
In a rematch of their 2018 faceoff for the governor’s mansion, when Kemp narrowly defeated Abrams 50.2% to 48.8%, the Republican incumbent is faring much better than he did four years ago. About 55% of voters say they plan to back Kemp for a second term compared to just 44% who said they’ll vote for Abrams, according to a recent Monmouth University poll.
Of those who said they’ll back Kemp, 44% said they “definitely” plan to vote for the incumbent, up 10 points from a similar poll conducted in September. Comparatively, only 35% said they would “definitely” vote for Abrams.
However, the Democrat faces an uphill battle as more voters are likely to say they will “definitely not” vote for her, with 50% of Georgians reporting that sentiment compared to just 35% who said the same about Kemp, the poll shows.
The polling indicates that Kemp’s standing has only strengthened over the last few weeks, while Abrams has mostly stayed stagnant, according to pollsters.
“Kemp’s support has clearly solidified in the past month while Abrams has been in a holding pattern,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. “I said last month, that some election conspiracists may be nursing a grudge against Kemp for not stepping in to overturn the 2020 result, but they were likely to come home in the end. That looks to be the case with the added bonus that Kemp distancing himself from Trump is a plus among some independent voters.”
The Monmouth University poll surveyed 615 Georgia voters between Oct. 20-24 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.