AJC poll
This Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll surveyed 853 registered voters statewide from Jan. 4 to Jan. 7. The margin of error for each response is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
The survey used both traditional land-line and cell phones. The data are weighted based on mode (cell only, land-line only and mixed), region (metro vs. non-metro), gender, age, race, education and ethnicity (Hispanic vs. non-Hispanic). Some totals may not equal 100 percent due to rounding.
Sources: Scientific Research-Based Interventions; AJC analysis
For complete results, log on to myAJC.com
Candidate favorability
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll weighed the overall favorability — based on responses from Democrats, Republicans and independents — of leading presidential candidates in both major parties.
Republicans
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson — 41 percent
Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz — 38 percent
Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio — 37 percent
Businessman Donald Trump — 32 percent
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — 26 percent
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — 22 percent
Democrats
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — 43 percent
Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders — 38 percent
Candidate favorability
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll weighed the overall favorability — based on responses from Democrats, Republicans and independents — of leading presidential candidates in both major parties.
Republicans
Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson — 41 percent
Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz — 38 percent
Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio — 37 percent
Businessman Donald Trump — 32 percent
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie — 26 percent
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush — 22 percent
Democrats
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — 43 percent
Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders — 38 percent
Georgia Republicans are deeply concerned about the direction the country is taking and angling for someone with outsider chops to run it. Democrats, meanwhile, are rallying around front-runner Hillary Clinton, though her campaign’s hopes of turning Georgia blue seem as daunting as ever.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll offers a glimpse of the frustrated mood of Republican voters, and the more optimistic outlook of Democrats, less than two months before Georgia holds its presidential primary on March 1.
A clean majority of Republican voters want the next president to be someone outside the existing establishment, according to the poll, and a staggering portion of GOP voters — more than 90 percent — feel the nation is on the wrong track.
Democrats have an almost polar-opposite view. Eighty-three percent of them want someone with political experience and two-thirds are confident in the country’s direction.
And it shows independents — that influential voting bloc that in Georgia typically leans toward the GOP — harbor deep misgivings about the nation’s future and the front-runners in both parties.
The poll, conducted by ABT SRBI, indicated that many Georgia Republicans are open to several of the top contenders in the packed field. Roughly 60 percent of Republican voters have favorable views of Donald Trump, Texas U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Florida U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson.
But it wasn’t good news for the campaigns of establishment candidates Chris Christie and Jeb Bush. About half of Republican voters said they had an unfavorable impression of Christie, the New Jersey governor. A whopping 68 percent said they had a similar view of Bush, Florida’s ex-governor and the son and brother of two former presidents.
“I’m going to vote for whoever the Republican candidate is because I’m not a fan of Hillary Clinton,” said Gordon Church, a 65-year-old retiree from Brookhaven who wants an outsider. “But I know I’m not a fan of Washington politics and the way it operates these days. I just don’t like the way deal-making occurs — the underhanded nature of it all.”
The AJC poll also suggests a potential weakness for Trump, despite his dominant standing in most national polls.
Some 65 percent of independent voters, a crucial support base for any GOP contender in Georgia, have an unfavorable view of the billionaire. And almost two-thirds of Georgia voters — including nearly half of Republicans and 65 percent of independents — oppose his idea to ban Muslim immigrants from entering the country. One-third of voters support it.
Clinton, meanwhile, is seen favorably by the voters she would need to win in Georgia. Some 80 percent of black voters — who make up an overwhelming majority of Democratic primary voters here — have a positive view of her. About half of black voters give her main Democratic rival, Vermont U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, a similar rating.
Clinton’s campaign has its work cut out for the general election, though. A majority of Georgia voters, 53 percent, give her an unfavorable rating compared with 43 percent who have positive views. About two-thirds of independent voters have negative feelings about her — along with 92 percent of Republicans.
“I will not vote for Hillary Clinton under no condition. I don’t like the Clintons. I don’t like what they stand for. I’ll support Bernie Sanders. Proudly,” said Carla Vandergriff, a 75-year-old retiree from Rossville who considers herself an independent voter.
“If people don’t vote for him,” she added, “they’re going to deserve what they get.”
Also set to be on the November ballot is Sen. Johnny Isakson, who is seeking a third term. No Democrat has stepped up yet to challenge him, and the only declared Republican had his campaign account disbanded by the feds.
But Isakson betrayed some weakness in the poll. About 35 percent of voters approved of how he handled his job, roughly one-third disapproved, and the rest didn’t know or declined to answer. One in four Republicans said he or she disapproved of Isakson’s two terms in office.
Voters signaled that the deep political divide that helped fuel the rise of the tea party movement hasn’t disappeared. About one in five Republicans has an unfavorable impression of his or her own party, as do about 60 percent of independent voters.
Democrats aren’t as divided, with only about 10 percent of partisans having a negative impression of their own party. About half of independents, meanwhile, hold an unfavorable opinion of the party.
One in five voters said his or her single-most-important issue in choosing a president is the threat of terrorism, reflecting the rise of the Islamic State and the recent deadly attacks in Paris and the U.S. But the top concern, netting about one-third of Georgia voters, is the economy.
“We’re too worried about overseas policies,” said Errol Tripp, a 55-year-old in Decatur who retired from the military. “It’s all about money and political positions. It’s not about our people. My biggest problem is what we do for the people we have here and what we don’t do for them.”
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