Landmark Communications is out with an independent poll showing Republican challenger Rick Allen ahead of U.S. Rep. John Barrow, D-Augusta, but still within the margin of error in the race's final days.
Allen holds 48.1 percent of likely voters in the 12th Congressional District, while Barrow gets 44.4, and 7.5 percent of respondents remain undecided. The poll's margin of error is 4.38 percent. Its 500 interviews were conducted Thursday.
The Republican polling firm did not coordinate the survey with any organization or candidate. The only other numbers out there came from An Allen internal in September showed Barrow up by 2.
The district's Republican lean and midterm turnout weigh in Allen's favor, but the five-term Barrow is a relentless campaigner who has not made any big errors.
Barrow is winning 15 percent of self-described Republicans, but 41 percent of independents -- who tend to lean conservative in Georgia -- and 84 percent of Democrats.
You can read the full results here. Landmark president Mark Rountree sent along the following commentary:
"When reviewing the internal numbers of the poll, it does reveal that those voters who call themselves 'undecided' are more likely to be Democratic in voting behavior than not, so Barrow may carry more of these voters if they vote. Rick W. Allen simply has less ground to cover than Barrow in order to get to 50%+1."
Barrow's campaign pointed to a CBS/NYT/YouGov poll conducted from Oct. 16-23 that shows Barrow ahead, 46-42, but the survey of all 435 congressional districts has a whopping 14 percent margin of error.
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