AJC Poll: Carter in tight race with Deal, Nunn leading GOP Senate contenders

The poll is good news to state Democrats trying to erode the Republican Party's grip on the highest political offices. The party hopes that it can harness a rising number of minority voters and other newcomers to make inroads in November rather than waiting for future election cycles.

But it's important to note that GOP candidates have yet to unleash the brunt of their considerable resources at Democratic rivals. Deal's campaign has so far ignored Carter in its feel-good ad campaign, and Republican Senate candidates are busy battering each other ahead of the May 20 primary.

It found that Deal's approval ratings have lodged at 44 percent, below the 50 percent thresholdincumbents aim to reach, and his disapproval rating is at 43 percent. Deal is tracking at 46 percent to Carter's 43 percent.

The poll doesn't involve a horse race matchup for the GOP Senate race, as our editors determined we couldn't get results with a low enough margin of error to be valuable. (We'll have a deeper explanation from our bosses on that later.) The findings, though, provide a telling glimpse at the bigger prize - the November elections.

It was conducted by the pollster Abt SRBI Inc. and involves 1,012 registered voters and a margin of error of 4 percent.

You can already see the poll's findings on Georgia's gun rights expansion here. We'll have the full poll results on our myajc.com website at noon Saturday, with details on how voters feel about the healthcare expansion, the ethics problems facing Deal and even former President Jimmy Carter's approval ratings. We'll also post crosstabs, graphics - the whole shebang.

Until then, stay tuned.