Warnock bests Walker by 9 points, Kemp narrowly leads Abrams: Ga. Paul

• In the Georgia Senate race, Warnock leads Walker 48%-39%, according to the latest SurveyUSA poll.
• In the year After winning a Senate runoff in January 2021, Warnock will seek a full six-year term.
• Walker, a former NFL player, is a political candidate endorsed by former President Trump.

Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock has a nine-point lead over Republican challenger Herschel Walker in the state’s high-profile Senate race, according to a new poll by SurveyUSA for 11Alive News.

The survey showed Warnock with 48% support among voters in the Peach State, while Walker received 39% support; Eight percent of respondents were undecided.

In the poll, nine out of ten Democrats (90%) lined up behind Warnock, while Walker received the support of 77% of Republicans. In the survey, 10% of Republican respondents crossed over in favor of Warnock and Walker.

Crucially, Warnock has a strong lead among both urban and suburban respondents, whose strong support for Democratic candidates in recent cycles has turned Georgia from a Republican stronghold into a swing state with strong interest in both political parties.

Walker — a former University of Georgia football standout who was born in Augusta and raised in rural Wrightsville — had a 28-point lead among rural voters. But, while Republicans have held strong with rural voters for years, Democratic gains in the fast-growing Atlanta metropolitan area have begun to erode GOP margins in recent state races.

Republicans feel Walker’s universal popularity in the state and early support from former President Donald Trump will be key to a favorable midterm vote for the GOP.

But in addition to making some inroads with GOP voters, Warnock led Walker with independents (44%-35%), a group that has favored few Republicans in statewide races in recent cycles. (In the 2020 election, now-President Joe Biden won Georgia liberals over then-President Donald Trump by a 53%-44% margin, according to a CNN exit poll.)

And Walker has faced a barrage of questions about his campaign, from public statements about his birthrate to comments about climate policy and China’s air pollution.

Meanwhile, Warnock tried to make the case that Biden is laser-focused on the economy given his lackluster approval ratings.

The senator, who was first elected in 2021 against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, is seeking his first six-year term this fall.

In the gubernatorial race, incumbent Republican Governor Brian Kemp led Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams by a 45%-44% margin; Four percent of respondents indicated they would support another candidate, while seven percent were undecided.

In the polls, Abrams had 92% of Democrats, while Kemp had 87% of Republicans.

However, unlike the matchup between Warnock and Walker, independents supported Kemp by a 20% margin (48%-28%), despite the apparent Republican Abraham doing a better job of consolidating support within the party.

When Abrams ran unopposed for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, Kemp had to overcome a challenge from former Sen. David Perdue, who was endorsed by Trump after the governor refused to help the former president to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the state.

In the year He won Georgia in the 2020 presidential race, but Trump continues to claim — without any evidence — that there was widespread election fraud.

The competition between Abrams and Kemp was The 2018 gubernatorial election is a rematch, with the now-governor narrowly defeating the former Democratic state legislator and popular voting rights activist 50.2%-48.8%, bypassing a separate runoff election with a 50% threshold.