- Warnock has a 48%-39% lead over Walker in the Georgia Senate race, per a new SurveyUSA poll.
- Warnock is seeking a full six-year term after winning a Senate runoff election in January 2021.
Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia has a nine-point lead over Republican challenger Herschel Walker in the state's high-profile Senate contest, according to a new poll conducted by SurveyUSA for 11Alive News.
The $4 showed Warnock with 48% support among likely voters in the Peach State, while Walker received 39% support; eight percent of respondents were undecided.
In the poll, nine-in-ten Democrats (90%) were lined up behind Warnock, while Walker earned the support of 77% of Republicans; 10% of Republican respondents crossed over to support Warnock over Walker in the survey.
Critically, Warnock has strong leads among respondents in both urban and suburban areas, whose $4 in recent cycles have turned Georgia from a Republican stronghold to a swing state highly coveted by both political parties.
Walker — a former University of Georgia football standout who was born in Augusta and grew up in rural Wrightsville — had a 28-point led among rural voters. However, while Republicans have performed strongly with rural voters for years, Democratic gains in the fast-growing Atlanta metropolitan area have started to cut deeply into GOP margins in recent statewide races.
Republicans feel that Walker's near-universal name recognition in the state and early endorsement from former President Donald Trump will be key in what is poised to a GOP-friendly midterm electorate.
But in addition to Warnock making some inroads with GOP voters, he also led Walker with independents (44%-35%), a group that has backed fewer Republicans in statewide races in recent cycles. (In the 2020 election, now-President Joe Biden won Georgia independents by a 53%-44% margin over then-President Donald Trump, $4.)
And Walker has had to face myriad of questions regarding his campaign, from public $4 about the number of children that he has fathered to $4 that he made regarding climate policy and China's air.
Meanwhile, Warnock has sought to make the case that he has been laser-focused on the economy in the face of Biden's lackluster approval ratings.
The senator, who was first elected in a 2021 runoff election against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, is seeking his first full six-year term in office this fall.
In the gubernatorial contest, incumbent Republican Gov. Brian Kemp led Democratic nominee Stacey Abrams by a razor-thin 45%-44% margin; four percent of respondents indicated that they'll back another candidate while seven percent were undecided.
In the poll, Abrams held 92% of Democrats, while Kemp had the backing of 87% of Republicans.
However, unlike the matchup between Warnock and Walker, independents supported Kemp by a 20% margin (48%-28%), a clear edge that buoys the Republican despite Abrams so far having done a better job of consolidating intraparty support.
While Abrams ran unopposed for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Kemp had to beat back a $4 from ex-Sen. David Perdue, who had been $4 by Trump as a result of the governor's refusal to help the former president overturn the 2020 election results in the state.
Biden $4 Georgia in the 2020 presidential race, but Trump has continued to insist — $4 any evidence — that there was widespread election malfeasance.
The race between Abrams and Kemp is a rematch of the 2018 gubernatorial election, when the now-governor $4 the former Democratic state lawmaker and prominent voting-rights activist 50.2%-48.8%, narrowly winning the contest and avoiding a separate runoff election by exceeding the 50% threshold.
SurveyUSA polled 604 likely voters from July 21 through July 24; the survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.