A new poll from Democratic pollster Civiqs on behalf of Daily Kos shows Republicans at risk of losing both their Senate seats in Georgia this year, but the news is especially dire for Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who's on track for a very short career even if the GOP hangs on in the Peach State.
Loeffler's fortunes look grim, but she’s not the only Georgia Republican in trouble. Civiqs' examination of Georgia's regular Senate election finds Sen. David Perdue locked in tight with all of his potential Democratic opponents—and, for the first time in a public survey, trailing his best-known rival: Investigative filmmaker Jon Ossoff, who ran in the famous 2017 special election for Georgia's 6th Congressional District, edges Perdue 47-45.
This is also the first poll to publicly test the two other Democrats running, and they both perform similarly: Former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson trails just 45-44 and businesswoman Sarah Riggs Amico is just a little farther back at 45-42. Joe Biden is also up 1 point on Donald Trump, 48-47.
But Loeffler is in even worse shape. In a simulation of the November all-party general election for her seat, the incumbent is mired in fourth place with just 12% of the vote, despite the millions she's already spent out of her own pocket to promote her candidacy. Far ahead is Rep. Doug Collins, a fellow Republican and Trump favorite, who leads with 34%, while Pastor Raphael Warnock and businessman Matt Lieberman are vying for the second slot in an all-but-certain January runoff with 18% and 14% respectively. (A third Democrat, former U.S. Attorney Ed Tarver, is at 6.)
Those numbers could yet shift, of course, but hypothetical runoff matchups between the two Republicans and three Democrats illustrate just how little love the GOP base has for Loeffler. Against Collins, the Democrats, who all perform similarly, are in a tight race:
- Warnock: 45, Collins 44
- Lieberman: 44, Collins 44
- Tarver: 42, Collins 45
Not so versus Loeffler, who gets blown out by all three:
- Warnock: 45, Loeffler: 32
- Lieberman: 44, Loeffler: 32
- Tarver: 43, Loeffler: 32
These questions deliberately included an option that wouldn't be available in an actual runoff, which would feature only two candidates: the choice of voting for "someone else." That, however, allowed Civiqs to assess how warmly respondents feel about the field—and for a large slice of the Republican electorate, the answer when it comes to Loeffler is "ice cold." On average, about 19% of voters say they'd prefer a different candidate in the Loeffler runoffs, which explains her feeble 32% share of the vote, while just 7% say the same when Collins is the GOP standard-bearer.
Overall, Loeffler sports a brutal 21-59 favorability rating and is even underwater with members of her own party, who give her a 36-39 mark—a shockingly miserable score. Collins, on the other hand, stands at 40-35 among all voters and 76-9 with Republicans, a much more normal finding (typically, Republicans like Republican politicians and Democrats like Democratic politicians—as you'd expect!).
Matters have gotten so bad for Loeffler, who hasn't been able to offer straight answers about the burgeoning insider trading scandal she's engulfed in, that her campaign has reached the point of having to deny that she's dropping out. Fellow Republicans are now openly sniping to reporters—some even on the record—with one unnamed operative telling McClatchy's Francesca Chambers that GOP candidates in other races are "nervous as hell" about possible spillover effects from Loeffler's scandal.
Civiqs' results echo those from a trio of recent Republican polls that have found Perdue stuck in the mid-40s and Ossoff within striking distance, as well as Biden neck and neck with Trump. The picture for the special election is a bit more varied, but Loeffler has almost never led and has seldom had anything but a very shaky grip on the second slot at best.
At this point, it's likely her only hope lies in devoting her giant personal fortune to nuking Collins. Ironically, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp tapped Loeffler when GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson resigned last year as the supposedly more electable option, but a messy internal fight could damage both candidates and leave either softened up for Democrats.
There's still one key detail that probably redounds in the GOP's favor, though: January turnout. Unless Loeffler really does quit the race, the special election, as mentioned above, is sure to result in a second round of voting since it's almost impossible to envision anyone capturing a majority of the vote. The regular election is likely to as well, since Georgia, uniquely, also requires that all general election candidates win a majority of the vote. With a Libertarian on the November ballot, there's a good chance no one will, as this Civiqs poll suggests.
Georgia Republicans have won every runoff in the last couple of decades, largely because Democratic-leaning voters tend to fall off in larger numbers. So if either or both of these races are prolonged until next year, the GOP finally encounter some good news. On the other hand, a possible lame-duck Donald Trump tweeting lord-knows-what every day could keep Democrats energized in new ways that Republicans would probably rather not find out about.