Former President Trump currently holds a 5-point lead over President Biden among Georgia voters in a potential head-to-head contest, according to a recent Quinnipiac University poll published on Wednesday.
This survey, which was conducted between May 30 and June 3, shows that 49 percent of registered voters in Georgia favor Trump, while 44 percent back Biden.
Support within their respective parties remains strong for both candidates: 94 percent of Republicans are in favor of Trump, with only 4 percent crossing party lines to support Biden. Similarly, Biden enjoys the backing of 93 percent of Democrats, with just 4 percent supporting Trump.
Among independent voters, the race is currently deadlocked, with 45 percent supporting each candidate.
When considering a hypothetical six-candidate race, both Trump and Biden see a drop in overall support. However, Trump’s lead extends by 1 point, bringing him to 43 percent support compared to Biden’s 37 percent.
In this broader match-up, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. garners 8 percent of the vote, Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver secures 3 percent, independent candidate Cornel West also gets 3 percent, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein receives 2 percent.
Tim Malloy, a polling analyst at Quinnipiac University, noted that Trump’s slight advantage in a direct contest with Biden becomes more pronounced in a more crowded field that includes additional candidates such as a new Libertarian contender.
The expanded candidate list appears to have a more detrimental effect on Biden’s support base in Georgia than on Trump’s. In the hypothetical six-way race, Biden’s support from Democrats drops to 80 percent, a significant decline from 93 percent in the direct contest. Trump’s support among Republicans sees a smaller dip, falling to 90 percent from 94 percent.
Kennedy draws 10 percent of Democratic voters in the six-way race, while only 5 percent of Republicans shift their support to him. Among independent voters, 38 percent favor Biden, 35 percent lean towards Trump, and 11 percent support Kennedy in the more crowded field.
The additional candidates, West, Stein, and Oliver, siphon more support from Biden’s base, with 7 percent of Democrats backing one of these candidates, compared to only 2 percent of Republicans.
This poll was released shortly after Trump’s conviction in New York, where he faced 34 counts of falsifying business records related to efforts to conceal potentially damaging information from the public before the 2016 election. The poll indicates that 50 percent of voters agree with the verdict, while 44 percent disagree. Among Democrats, a significant majority (96 percent) agree with the verdict, whereas a majority of Republicans (86 percent) disagree. Independents are split, with 52 percent in agreement and 42 percent in disagreement with the conviction.
The Quinnipiac University survey included responses from 1,203 self-identified registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.