More than 188,000 Georgians voted in person on the first day of early voting this week, about 53,000 more than showed up on the first day four years ago. They are deciding a governor’s race that the newest poll cannot separate: Republican Rick Jackson at 49 percent, Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms at 47 percent, a two-point gap inside the survey’s margin of error, with three weeks left to run.
The seat is open because Gov. Brian Kemp is barred by term limits from a third consecutive term. The winner takes office in a state that has not elected a Democratic governor since 1998, in the first election cycle since Georgia became a majority-minority state. Election Day is November 3.
One Poll, and the Four That Came Before It
The new survey, from InsiderAdvantage, was conducted October 12 and 13 among 800 likely voters, weighted for age, race, gender, and political affiliation, with a margin of error of 3.46 percentage points. Four percent of voters are undecided. The poll was taken after the candidates’ most recent debate, a stage Jackson did not appear on; pollster Matt Towery noted the absence cost him nothing measurable.
What gives the survey weight is how familiar its numbers are. A September InsiderAdvantage poll had Jackson ahead 48 to 46. Rasmussen Reports had him at 48 to 45. A YouGov survey had him at 46 to 44 among likely voters. The Big Data Poll had the race tied outright. Five surveys from four firms across two months describe the same contest: Jackson holding a narrow, stable edge that no pollster can certify, and an electorate that finished making up its mind weeks ago.
With only 4 percent undecided and a two-point gap, the remaining contest is not persuasion. It is turnout, and both campaigns know it. Jackson’s own post on X after the poll’s release ended in capital letters: “But it all comes down to the next 20 days. VOTE EARLY!”
Two Very Different Routes to November
Jackson, 72, founded Jackson Healthcare and entered the race in February as a political unknown with a personal fortune. He spent more than $83 million of his own money in the primary, the largest self-funded campaign for Georgia governor on record, and in the June 16 runoff he defeated Lt. Gov. Burt Jones by five points. Jones had the endorsements of both President Trump and Governor Kemp, who backed Jones two days before the runoff vote. Trump has since endorsed Jackson for the general election.
Bottoms, Atlanta’s mayor from 2018 to 2022 and later a senior adviser in the Biden White House, won the Democratic nomination in May without a runoff, clearing a field of six other candidates. If she wins in November, she would be Georgia’s first female governor and first Black governor, and the first Black woman elected governor of any state. Former President Barack Obama endorsed her in a video released October 8, pointing to her record of balanced Atlanta budgets and pay raises for police officers.
What Each Is Running On
Jackson’s plan leads with taxes: cut the state income tax in half, lower property taxes, and bring down health care costs. His campaign reads the new poll as confirmation. “Georgians watched Rick Jackson and Keisha Lance Bottoms on the same stage last week, and as they head to the polls, they are choosing the candidate with a plan to cut taxes and lower costs,” said campaign spokesman Garrison Douglas, who also pressed Bottoms on her single term as mayor, the campaign’s central line of attack.
Bottoms has campaigned on Medicaid expansion, a fight Georgia Democrats have waged for a decade, along with cost reduction and universal pre-K. Her campaign’s loudest procedural argument has been about debates: she accepted invitations to six televised matchups across the state, and Jackson agreed to one, the October 6 Atlanta News First town hall. Her senior adviser Beth Cope has argued voters deserve a side-by-side comparison. Jackson, who skipped a subsequent debate to tour the state with Governor and Mrs. Kemp, has said his time is better spent meeting voters directly. Towery’s post-debate survey suggests the strategy carries no polling penalty.
The Election Underneath the Poll
Towery’s analysis names the two forces pulling against each other. “We continue to see in our polling across the country, a tremendous surge in senior voters, which we have not seen in many cycles. And they have moved heavily towards the Republican candidates,” he wrote. “However, in Georgia, the African American vote was strong in the first day of early voting, which pretty much tracks with our belief that this will be a close race, but one that Jackson is leading.” The September surveys put numbers under that tension: voters 65 and older broke for Jackson by nearly thirty points in the Rasmussen poll, while voters under 30 broke for Bottoms by twenty-four.
Early voting runs through October 30, and the first two days produced more than 309,000 votes statewide. For The Social Register’s readers, the stakes sit in the governor’s appointments, the state arts and preservation budgets, and the Medicaid decision that shapes hospitals from Atlanta to Albany, whoever signs them come January.
Analyst Bryan Robinson, watching the same unmoving numbers on Fox 5’s “Red Clay Rundown,” gave the race its most accurate description so far: “What’s unusual here is how stuck in molasses this race has been. We have seen Rick Jackson with his two, three-point lead for a long period of time, and it’s just not moving at all. At this juncture, it all comes down to turnout.”
