Donald Trump has a significant lead over President Joe Biden in a 2024 election poll in Georgia, a key swing state that could help decide who wins November's race.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll of registered voters shows Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee who recently triumphed in the Iowa caucus, with an eight-point lead over Biden in a hypothetical match-up: 45 percent to 37 percent.
Georgia is one of the states Biden flipped from Trump in the 2020 election and is one of several swing states that Biden must aim to retain if he is to win reelection in the 2024 race. Biden's hopes of beating Trump in November have been marred by frequently low approval ratings and polls suggesting the Republican would beat him in swing states such as Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.
In a previous Atlanta Journal-Constitution survey in November 2023, Biden and Trump were nearly tied, with the former president at 45 percent and Biden at 44 percent. However, the AJC noted that that poll featured voters with a history of voting who said they intend to vote in November's election, but not those who say they won't vote this year.
The latest survey shows that Biden faces issues from independent and Black voters, who were previously key to his Georgia victory in 2020. The poll showed that 10 percent of Black voters say they don't plan to take part in the 2024 White House race at all.
In total, 20 percent of Georgians said they are currently not ready to support either Trump or Biden for president, another example of people suggesting they want a better choice of candidates in the presidential race.
More than half (54 percent) of independent voters said they disapprove of Biden's performance as president.
The White House and Trump's office have been contacted for comment via email.
Some voters who took part in the poll explained why they do not support either Trump or Biden. Andrew Harper, of Ben Hill County, said he will write in another name on his ballot if Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is not the Republican nominee.
"I don't believe either candidate is qualified or meets what we need to be president," Hill told the AJC.
Joel Krieger of Dunwoody, who is supporting independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said he is supporting the environmental lawyer and vaccine skeptic's long-shot bid as he sees it as a "once-in-a-lifetime chance" to shake up Washington D.C. for the better. "Aren't we all tired of voting for the lesser of two evils?" Krieger asked.
Bobbi Haley, of Cobb County, said that while she believes Biden is a "terrible candidate," she will reluctantly vote for the president in November as she believes Trump is a "threat to democracy" because of his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results.
"The Democratic Party is going to use this threat of the worst of two evils to put up whoever they want, probably for as long as Trump is available to run a second term," Haley.
The AJC poll of 1,007 registered voters was conducted January 3-11 by the University of Georgia's School of Public and International Affairs. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.
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Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, domestic policy ... Read more
