It’s in Georgia where we begin our look at the week of politics that was.
- CBS News/YouGov gave Kemp a 52% to 46% advantage
- Marist College had Kemp up 50% to 44%
- Monmouth University found that 49% of Georgians would support Kemp while 45% would back Abrams
These polls line up with the average of recent surveys, which has Kemp ahead by around 5 points with about 50% of the vote. The latter is an important nugget because winning in November requires a majority of the vote to avoid a December runoff.
Kemp is in a considerably better position than he was at this point four years ago. Back then, the two candidates were basically tied in late September. Kemp would go on to win by a mere 1.4 points, narrowly avoiding a runoff.
Indeed, Kemp is a well-liked governor. The polls out last week put his net approval (approve minus disapprove) or favorability (favorable minus unfavorable) ratings in positive territory. That’s not an easy feat in a swing state like Georgia.
But it’s not all about Kemp. Abrams sported a negative net favorability rating in the Marist poll and was at break even in the Monmouth survey.
The problem for Abrams isn’t that she lacks devoted followers. About as many voters in Monmouth’s poll said they were definitely voting for Abrams (33%) as did for Kemp (34%). A higher percentage of Abrams supporters said they were very enthusiastically backing their candidate (74%) than Kemp supporters (58%) in the CBS News poll.
Abrams’ issue is that the candidate well known for her efforts to drive up voter turnout seems to be lagging among swing voters. Kemp leads by 10 points among independents in the average of recent polls.
And while Kemp does best among voters most likely to turn out, he leads among all registered voters too. In other words, his edge over Abrams is not merely about turnout.
For Abrams to win, she’ll likely need one of two things to happen. Either she’ll need to convince voters that Kemp is too extreme for Georgia, or she needs the polls to turn out to be inaccurate.
DeSantis may be beating Trump at his own game
So what had been about an 8-to-1 advantage (unrounded) for Trump in Fox mentions turned basically even in the week after the events at Martha’s Vineyard.
The ability for DeSantis to generate press is notable because it is Trump who is the one usually dominating the headlines. That’s a big reason Trump was able to win the 2016 GOP nomination. No other candidate appeared able to get a word in edgewise in the media.
Now you may say it’s not a big deal that DeSantis leads the former President in his home state.
If you looked back at presidential primaries in the modern era (i.e., since 1972), no one has won a major-party nomination without winning their home state.
So if DeSantis or Trump were to win the 2024 GOP nomination without Florida, they’d be making history. But more likely, one of them would win Florida and the Republican nomination for president.
For your brief encounters: Aaron Judge makes my heart sink
Judge is likely to demolish the American League single-season home run record this year. That, in itself, is impressive.
What makes Judge’s season all the more remarkable is that nobody else is anywhere close to him in the home run race. He’s been about 20 home runs ahead of his nearest competitor (Philadelphia Phillie Kyle Schwarber).
Not only that but he’s in the running for the American League Triple Crown (i.e., leading the league in home runs, batting average and runs batted in).
