GA Pollster Releases Poll Taken Right Before Abortion Story Showing Warnock Leading Walker by 12, Says Gap is Likely ‘Now Larger’

Photo by Megan Varner/Getty Images.

The report that Herschel Walker allegedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion in 2009 — not to mention his son’s social media posts denouncing him for it — quickly consumed the media oxygen around the Georgia Senate race, and new polls taken this week shine some light on the possible fallout from the explosive story.

Monday evening, The Daily Beast published an article detailing the claims by Walker’s ex-girlfriend, including “a $575 receipt from the abortion clinic, a ‘get well’ card from Walker, and a bank deposit receipt that included an image of a signed $700 personal check from Walker.”

Walker blasted the report as a “flat-out lie,” vowing to sue, but his son Christian Walker seemed to confirm the story in multiple tweets and videos he posted excoriating the former football star as an absentee father who had forced him and his mother to “move over 6 times in 6 months running from your violence.”

Rumors swirling around the Georgia political scene indicate the alleged abortion was not quite secret, and as Republicans rallied around Walker he had a “record-breaking” fundraising day after the story broke, reportedly raising $182,000, $50,000 of which came during his interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity.

Still, the only numbers that truly matter in the end are the ones collected at Georgia ballot boxes, and a newly-released poll that was almost completely conducted before the abortion story broke gives us some insight into how Walker is faring in his effort to unseat incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA).

The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA for Atlanta’s 11Alive News from Sept. 30 through Oct. 4 (the story broke Oct. 3), showed 50% of likely Georgia voters picked Warnock, 38% Walker, 5% another candidate, and 7% undecided.

According to the polling memo, a group of 1,600 Georgia adults were interviewed online, which was comprised of 1,305 registered voters. Questioning revealed 1,076 respondents saying they were “likely” to vote in the November election and then the remainder of the polling questions were asked, with results weighted to U.S. Census data regarding “gender, age, race, education, and home ownership.” The margin of error for the group of likely voters was +/- 3.7%.

The pollster directly addressed the controversy swirling around Walker, writing:

SurveyUSA completed interviews with 95% of the survey respondents before The Daily Beast published allegations that Walker paid for a girlfriend’s abortion and before Walker’s son, conservative influencer Christian Walker, attacked his father on social media for lying, according to the younger Walker, in his denial of the Daily Beast story; it is likely that the gap between Walker and Warnock is now larger than shown here.

The SurveyUSA poll is, as 11Alive reporter Jonathan Raymond pointed out, “an outlier among recent polls conducted, specifically with regard to Walker’s support bottoming out;” the previous RealClearPolitics polling average had Warnock up by 1.3 (it’s now Warnock by 3.8).

The poll had otherwise fairly sunny results for Peach State Republicans besides Walker, with Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) holding steady with a narrow lead over Stacey Abrams (D), and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) and Attorney General Chris Carr leading their Democratic challengers, Bee Nguyen and Jen Jordan respectively, as well.

Another new poll taken just on Tuesday by InsiderAdvantage for Fox5 Atlanta also showed Walker trailing, although by not as great of a margin as the SurveyUSA poll, with Warnock winning over 47% of likely voters, Walker getting 44%, Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver 3%, another candidate 1%, and 5% undecided.

The Fox5 poll included 550 likely voters and a margin of error of +/- 4.2%

InsiderAdvantage founder Matt Towery told Fox5 their company had a poll in the field when the abortion story broke and “scrapped that poll and surveyed [Tuesday] evening” instead. He noted that in their previous poll, Warnock was up by one but now led by three, good news for Warnock even though it was still within the margin of error.

Towery added that he believes the race is heading for a runoff:

Warnock was at 47% in our September survey of this contest and despite the latest controversy around Walker, remains at the same percentage. Walker has dropped since our September survey, which is not surprising. However, the votes shift around but do not seem to push the incumbent near the fifty percent plus one vote number needed to win. Walker continues to take endless hits to his personal reputation in paid media and press reports, but Warnock has gone relatively unscathed by the Walker campaign and media regarding his personal reputation. If Warnock escapes a runoff, that will likely be the one determining factor in the contest.

UPDATE 4:45 pm ET: Decision Desk HQ updated their Senate ratings Wednesday afternoon, moving Georgia from “Lean D to Likely D.”

DDHQ 2022 Forecast Update: (1 of 4)

In today’s model release, three U.S. Senate races change ratings. PA moves from Toss Up to lean D, GA from Lean D to Likely D, and OH from Lean R to Toss Up. pic.twitter.com/z9s4ACnSA5

— Decision Desk HQ (@DecisionDeskHQ) October 5, 2022

—

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!